Unni

ON ST. UNNI, ARCHBISHOP, AT HAMBURG AND CORVEY IN SAXONY,

IN THE YEAR 936.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Unnus, archbishop of Hamburg. (S.)

BY V. D. B.

§ I. St. Unni's cult, miracles and relics. His Acts lost.

St. Unni, who is read to have been called also Unnus, Unno, Wimo, Wymo, Vuimo, Guimo and Wino, and whom the Bremen Index, St. Unni, although rather often passed over in our work, (of which more will be said below at num. 17 and 19,) calls Brun or Unno, has already twice been placed in our work among those passed over; first at April 15, on which his name was recorded in the manuscript Calendar of Antwerp of the order of St. Benedict Acta SS. vol. II of April. page 371., and then at September 15, on which Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of the Saints praised his name Ibid. vol. V of Sept. page 4.; nay, in this latter place it seemed to our predecessors that he had had no ecclesiastical cult, nor accordingly were his deeds ever at any time to be illustrated among the Acts of the Saints. But less rightly: for there is no doubt that a hundred years before the most celebrated decrees of Urban VIII on the cult of Saints some ecclesiastical honours were granted to him.

[2] nevertheless had an ecclesiastical cult, as Molanus inserted his name in his first edition of Usuard, writing: On the same day (October 21), of Blessed Wimo, bishop of Bremen, who rests at Birka; in the other editions: from the Martyrologies, At Birka, of Blessed Wimo, bishop of Bremen, who preached the word of God to the Goths. From this the same or a similar memorial was taken up by Walasser in the later editions of the Martyrology which is customarily attributed to the Ven. Canisius; by Wion in the Lignum Vitae Lignum Vitae, book [III, vol. II, page 346.: by Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints; by Ménard in the Monastic Martyrology: by Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology, and by Castellanus, who, as he was accustomed to call venerable those holy or blessed confessors of whom no ecclesiastical office is made, honoured St. Unni also with that title. I omit others.

[3] from the title of Saint from the eleventh century Another indication of cult is drawn from the appellation of Saint or Blessed, falling (as they say) on the person, and not on the morals and pious life; so that the title of Saint or Blessed has the manner and character of a forename: which praise seems to have begun to be given to saint Unni from at least the end of the eleventh century. For Adam of Bremen, who flourished in this age, calls him in book I of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the church of Hamburg our most blessed archbishop Unni In Pertz, Monum. German. vol. VII, page 304., confessor of God Ibid. page cit., or of the Lord Ibid. page 305., athlete of God Ibid. page cit., evangelist of God Ibid. page cit., saint of God Ibid. page 304., the holy father Unni Ibid. page 305., etc. And in the scholia which he himself seems to have added to book IV, or to the description of the islands of the North, he writes thus of Birka Ibid. page 376.: There in Birka is the harbour of saint Ansgar and the tomb of saint Unni the archbishop, a familiar hospice, I say, of the confessors of our see. This in scholium 122; and below in scholium 138, where he treats of the first entry of Adalward the younger, bishop of Sigtuna or Skara, into Sweden Ibid. page 381.: Then also, he says, on the occasion of his journey he (Adalward) turned aside to Birka, which has now been reduced to a wilderness, so that the traces of the city scarcely appear: wherefore not even the tomb of saint Unni the archbishop could be found: these things pertain to the year 1064 Messenius, Scondia illustr. vol. IX, page 60., or 1070 Rhyzelius, Episcopia Suiogothica, vol. I, page 165..

[4] given him to the present day, The brief Chronicle of Bremen, which is of almost the same age as Adam the schoolmaster, likewise adorns our prelate of Bremen with the appellation of saint; and since the chronicler had not done so consistently, the copyist who wrote out the copy of Peter Olai the Minorite and enlarged it in many places according to Adam of Bremen inserted the forename of saint here and there. Here it is In Pertz, vol. VII, page 391.: Saint Unni received the pallium from Pope John, the staff from King Conrad; he sat 16 years, eleven months, 17 days. King Conrad died in the first year of this pontiff … Saint Unni the archbishop died at Birka while evangelizing the Danes and the Northmen. The things enclosed in brackets are additions of the copy of Peter Olai. Martène published the same Chronicle from the codex of Bödeken and defiled it with many errors. Saint Vinri is read there Ampliss. Collect. vol. V, col. 504.. Similarly Adam Tratziger, syndic of Hamburg in the middle of the sixteenth century, in his vernacular Hamburg Chronicle In Westphalen, Rer. Germanic. vol. II. col. 1270. calls him St. Unni; and Staphorst Hamburgischen Kirchengeschichten, vol. III, page 535. calls Unno the priest or den Heiligen. Rightly, therefore, Messenius, most learned in northern matters, continued to call him now blessed, now saint Scondia Illustrata, vol. IX, page 8 and 59.; similarly Matthias Johann Beehr, the Mecklenburg historian Rerum Mecleburgic. book I, chap. 4. col. 60 and 61., very often calls him Blessed; whom Wilmans also, the author of the index of volume VII of Pertz's Monumenta, has recently imitated.

[5] from the honour of his tomb and from miracles it is established, Some cult for St. Unni's relics immediately after

his death was probably bestowed. For when he had died in the middle of Sweden, his disciples separated the head from the trunk, to carry it back to Bremen and lay it with fitting honour in the church of saint Peter before the altar. Above we have heard from Adam of Bremen that Adalward, bishop of Sigtuna, turned aside to Birka to visit the tomb of saint Unni: which indeed he did not find amid the ruins of the city; but by his searches he is a witness to us that a pious memory of that tomb survived among the Saxons. Nor is this surprising: for Trithemius in the Chronicle of Hirsau makes mention of miracles which were done at Birka at his tomb: Wyno, he says Chronicum Hirsaugiense, at the year 909, Opp. hist. ed. 1601, part II, page 24., a monk of Corvey in Saxony of our order, a learned and holy man, elected archbishop, presided eighteen years; who afterward, for the love of God, entered Gothland and preached the word of God to those peoples, and, after some years having died and been buried there, shone with many miracles. In the Annals, in which he twice calls him saint Wyno, once the most holy prelate Wyno, he speaks no otherwise Annales Hirsaugienses at the year 909, vol I, page 56, ed. 1690.: In the same island, he says, he at length rested in the Lord, and both in life and after death he is said to have shone with almost infinite miracles.

[6] which Sigebert of Corvey wrote shortly after his death; And his testimony is of so much the greater weight because in both places, in the Chronicle and the Annals, he speaks in such a way that he manifestly seems to have had the Life of St. Unni, or Wyno, in his hands. For after the words recited he adds in the Annals: The disciple and companion of the pilgrimage of this most holy prelate Wymo was Sigebert, a monk of the aforementioned monastery (of Corvey), most learned in every variety of writings, who, saint Wyno having died in Gothland, returned to Corvey and described his life, pilgrimage and miracles in a twin eloquence, namely in prose and also in metre. He published besides some other things, by which he consecrated his memory to immortality. Some interpret these words as if Sigebert had written the Life of St. Unni partly in verse, partly in free speech; some as if he had composed two Lives, so that the same honour would have been done to St. Unni which fell to St. Ansgar and so many others: which latter opinion is much more probable.

[7] which work is now lost. But these things are of the smallest moment, since there is no longer any hope of obtaining either Life: for the copy which Trithemius had must be judged either to have been scattered with the rest of the books of this eminent man shortly after his death, or to have perished by fire with the documents of Hirsau in the castle of Blumenegg, whither they had been carried when the arms of the Protestants were raging against the Catholics Annales Hirsaug. pref. page V.. Nor were the fortunes of the codex of Corvey better, which perhaps had been consumed long before the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, in this age, when there has been much inquiry in Germany about the genuineness of the Chronicle of Corvey, which Falke often cited in the notes to the Traditiones Corbejenses, nothing has been omitted so that it might become known what manuscript books once existed at Corvey; and since in that Chronicle the parents of St. Unni were designated by name, there was a special reason why the Life of this saint should be thought of: but not a whit of the works of Sigebert of Corvey has been discovered [Cf. Wigand, Die Corveyschen Geschichtsquellen. Ein Nachtrag zur kritischen Prüfung des Chronicum Corbeiense, 1841.]. For the rest, we have spent every effort that, if it lay hidden anywhere, knowledge of it might come to us; since how great its value would be if the ancient history of St. Unni were added to the Lives of SS. Ansgar and Rimbert and of the other apostolic men of the north is more easily understood than anyone could ever say.

[8] The cult of St. Unni's relics at New Corvey is certain. But from this digression let us return to St. Unni's relics, the fourth argument for establishing his cult. In the latter part of the fourteenth century Bodo, count of Pyrmont and the 41st abbot of New Corvey, gave command to Conrad or William of Plettenberg, provost of Eresburg, to write a Lipsanography, which should contain both the rite of the ostension and a catalogue of the relics of Corvey. And from this it is established that St. Unni's relics were formerly venerated at Corvey. In actual truth, while the monks of Corvey stood strenuously for the Catholic religion which their forefathers had once spread through all Saxony, and while they repelled with such success all the efforts of the new masters in these parts that the doctrine of Luther did not pass this wall; they very often fled with their sacred treasures and at length lost most of them, when the neighbouring town of Höxter, in which they had been deposited with the rest of the precious furniture, was stormed by the Austrians in the year 1634 [Ibid. page 22 and 23, and Paullini Dissertat. historiae varior. monasterior. page 131; Falke, Traditiones Corbejenses, page 738.]; nay, St. Unni's relics too perished in this slaughter, or at least were not given back. But, as we have said, in the fourteenth century, when Plettenberg wrote, he himself is a rich witness that they were preserved in the shrine of St. Severinus (as they called it) and were shown every year with the rest on the feast of St. Vitus; and lest anyone suspect that they were perhaps those of another saint, St. Unni's name is joined with his predecessor in the see of Bremen, St. Adalgar, in these words In Paullini, Dissertatio XIII continens Lipsanographiam Plettenbergii, page 129.: Of St. Unni and Adalgar, and also of the sepulchre of the Lord. And so, although St. Unni's cult has now perished, and never seems to have been widely spread, it most certainly existed a hundred and more years before Urban VIII drew up his decrees.

§ II. St. Unni's parents, monastic life at Corvey, attainment of the episcopate.

St. Unni's parents unknown; In the Chronicle of Corvey, which some suppose to have been forged by Falke, but Paul Wigand Die Corveyschen Geschichtsquellen, etc. much more probably supposes to have been partly collected from books, partly invented out of his own brain, by Paullini, physician and historian of Corvey, St. Unni is said to have been begotten of noble parents, namely his father Folchard and his mother Suaneborg. These names are read in the Traditiones Corbejenses §467, page 707.; but nothing suggests that they were St. Unni's parents; nay, Falke himself Ibid. §437 and 467 and 707. makes Folchard, the husband of Suaneberga, who is recorded in those Traditiones, the brother of Abbot Wallo, and assigns him with his wife Suaneborg to the eleventh century, a hundred years after St. Unni's death. In the table of the counts of Scharzfeld and Lutterberg, in which also that former pair is inserted, there appears another married couple who are called Folchard III and his wife Suaneberg Ibid. page 681.. This is taken partly from tradition CCCIV Ibid, page 540., in which Folchard and his son Folchard are read: but no mention is made of Suaneberga. This woman was given by the forged Chronicle of Corvey, Falke judging that the son Folchard, of whom that tradition treats, is the same as the husband of Suaneberga and the father of St. Unni, of whom the Chronicle speaks: so that we have here nothing else than inventions and rash conjectures. And indeed Falke himself made so little of the Chronicle of Corvey in this place that among the sons of his Folchard III and his wife Suaneberg he did not number St. Unni, but, on mere suspicion (as he himself confesses Ibid. page 608), only Burchard. Hence Paul Wigand gathers that the forgery of the Chronicle of Corvey cannot be attributed to Falke; which opinion he props with many other examples of the same kind. But we need not linger on these things: this one thing is enough for us, that credit is not to be given to the Chronicle of Corvey when it puts forth the parents of St. Unni, and that in the Traditiones Corbejenses nothing at all is recorded about them.

[10] he becomes a monk at New Corvey, whose fortunes are given in a few words; That St. Unni was born somewhat before the end of the ninth century is manifest; that he betook himself to New Corvey and there put on the monastic habit while Bovo II, or the Younger, presided over that house of ascetics, is probable: for Bovo was ordained abbot in the year 900 and died in the year 916 Annales Corbejenses, in Pertz. vol. III, page 4.. St. Unni's name, however, appears neither under the form Unno nor under the form Wimo or any other similar in the Chronicle of Corvey, or rather the Catalogue of the brethren of New Corvey, published by Meibom Rerum Germanic. vol. I, page 757.; but perhaps he is the same as the one who under Folcmar, Bovo's successor, is called there Brun, bishop. Further, that school of apostolic men and colony of Old Corbie in Picardy was built first at Hethe in the year 815, then in another place in the year 822, by Louis the Pious, in that part of Saxony which was afterward called Westphalia. The first superior was Adalard, other than St. Adalard, abbot of Old Corbie; the second Warin; the third Adalgar; the fourth Tancmar; the fifth Avo; the sixth Bovo I; the seventh Godescalc, who made way for Bovo II; of whom a little above: which we note for this reason, that we see the abbots of the two Corbies still confused with each other by some [Cf. Frid. Car. Kraft, Narratio de Ansgario Aquilonarium gentium apostolo, page 70.]. New Corvey, or Saxon Corvey, grew gradually very greatly in authority, wealth and lands. Through the misery of the times, however, it suffered at times in a monstrous manner. No one restored its affairs more than the most warlike Christoph Bernhard Van Galen, bishop of Münster, whom the monks of Corvey had created their abbot, needing military help abroad against their Protestant neighbours no less than abbatial government at home for recalling discipline and recovering dissipated goods. In the year 1794 Pope Pius VI erected New Corvey into a bishopric; but the higher it had risen, the deeper it fell shortly afterward. Namely, in the year 1805 it was given to the princes of Orange, four years after added to the new kingdom of Westphalia, and in the year 1815 attributed to the king of the Prussians; yet so that Amadeus Victor, prince of Rotenburg, held it by feudal right: it is now the seat of the princes of Hohenlohe-Bartenstein-Schillingsfürst. The inhabitants of the monastery, namely the dean and ten capitulars, were joined to the chapter of Paderborn; the buildings were left empty [Cf. Kraft, loc. cit.; Adrien Guibert, Dictionn. de Géogr. under Korrei; Wigand, Op. cit, etc.].

[11] [St. Unni is related by Adam to have been promoted in a wonderful manner to the united bishoprics of Hamburg and Bremen;] In the time of St. Ansgar, a few years before the middle of the ninth century [Cf. Henschenius, vol. I of February, page 392; Münter, Kirchengeschichte von Dänemank und Norwegen, vol. I, page 301 and following; Staphorst. Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte, page 38 and 39; Kratt, Op. cit. page 32 and 33, etc.], the bishopric of Bremen had been added to the archbishopric of Hamburg; whence difficulties very often arose with the archbishop of Cologne, within whose province the diocese of Bremen had previously lain.

The union nevertheless persisted, yet so that the archiepiscopal title and dignity were transferred to Bremen in the year 1223 Cf. Pagi, critice Baronii at the year 1043, num. 2.; and so, whereas before Bremen was reckoned a bishopric and Hamburg an archbishopric under one pastoral staff, the parts were thereafter inverted; until by the laws of the peace of Westphalia they were assigned to the king of Sweden: which order of things, however, all know was not stable. Adam of Bremen relates that St. Unni came to that infula in a wonderful manner; how truly he does so may be disputed: It has been handed down to memory, he says In Pertz, vol. VII, page 303., by the brethren that when Reginward had passed away, Leidrad, provost of the choir of Bremen, was elected by the clergy and people. He, using this Unni as his chaplain, came to the court. But King Conrad, breathed upon (as is believed) by the divine Spirit, disregarding the fine appearance of Leidrad, offered the pastoral staff to the little Unni, whom he had seen standing behind. On which it must be noted first of all that these things are stated not from certain sources but from the little tales of the canons of Bremen, a hundred and fifty years later than St. Unni's election. Next, since there is talk there of investiture by the pastoral staff or crozier, they hold that these things do not agree with the customs of this age, since they lay down that this use, or abuse, first arose in the times of Otto I, or the Great [Natalis Alexander, Hist. eccles. saec. XI et XII, Diss. IV de investit. vol. VII, page 271 and following. Meibom, de Jure invest. episc. per vim adempto, vol. III Rer. German. page 170 and following. With which cf. De Marca, de Concord. Sacerdotii et imperii, book VIII, chap. XII and following, vol. II, page 324 and following.].

[12] what is related there about investiture by the staff, Third, it is certain that the people of Bremen, as Henschenius has shown Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 557. from the Life of St. Otto of Bamberg, adhered to the emperor Henry while the war of investitures was blazing: nay, the brief Chronicle of Bremen is an argument that ancient writings were interpolated by them out of party zeal; for since it had been composed before those quarrels and had nothing about investitures, afterward a second edition was made, in which, starting from St. Rimbert, there was added to each of the bishops from which Roman pontiffs they had received the pallium and from which kings or emperors the ferula or pastoral staff Cf. Lappenberg's edition, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 390 and following.. And, in the judgment of Henschenius Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 557., the Life of St. Rimbert, as it has come down to us, is not free from this kind of interpolation; although a man who has deserved excellently of historical studies, Georg Pertz, decides otherwise Monum. German. vol. II, page 764.. And so it is notable that those two very great men fight with the same weapons, namely with the authority of Adam of Bremen: Henschenius to show that these words of the Life of St. Rimbert, Received honourably by him (Louis the Pious), he obtained the lordship of the bishopric with the commendation of the pontifical staff according to custom, were intruded; Pertz to contend that they are genuine. Henschenius's argumentation is of this kind: that these words did not yet exist in the Life of St. Rimbert when Adam wrote; therefore they were added afterward; and that they did not yet exist there, Adam himself is witness, writing in book I, chap. 32: Rimbert received the pontifical pallium from Pope Nicholas, the pastoral ferula from the emperor Louis, as can be discerned in the privileges. But what follows has been excerpted from his Life; as if the former words, not being read in the Life, were intruded afterward. The argument seems to bind; yet the distinguished Mr. Pertz did not deign to resolve it, being content to have noted that Adam's words could serve to refute Henschenius, who rested on no probable reason. Henschenius subjoined other arguments too; which you may see in him.

[13] do not seem true; Fourth and lastly, that little tale about Leidrad and St. Unni seems of so much less weight as Adam himself, in relating the investitures of the individual bishops, seems to forget his usual gravity. For it is his custom to indicate whence he draws almost each circumstance, unless the sources are in plain view; but he never notes where he read that the archbishops of Hamburg after St. Ansgar were all invested with the staff; except that he said, most falsely, that it is found in the privileges that St. Rimbert received the pastoral ferula from the emperor Louis. So that he seems to have supposed that all those bishops were instituted in that perverse manner, and to have deduced by conjecture from the years of the emperors and kings by whom it was done.

[14] but the rest agree with the customs of that age But although these things are so, I for my part would not dare to deny all credit to that narrative of the canons of Bremen; but I judge that that part is to be accepted which agrees with the customs of that age, or at least is not wholly at variance with them. Further, the election of Leidrad, as it is narrated there, was made according to chap. 3 of the Capitulary of Aachen of the year 817 In Pertz, Leges, vol. I, page 206., by which it was prescribed that bishops should be elected, namely by the election of the clergy and people according to the statutes of the canons, from their own diocese …; and this edict was so observed in the tenth century here and there in Germany that the election was made on the day of the death or deposition of the predecessor, and so that there was neither place nor time for exercising the royal right of commendation (as they call it); as we shall show by examples below; yet the royal assent (whether by right or by custom I do not inquire) was sought before the consecration took place; which thing was the more inclined to be so for the archbishops of Hamburg because Pope Gregory IV had committed their consecration meanwhile to the sacred providence of the palace, until the number of consecrators should be increased from among the nations, or until the archbishops of Hamburg should have suffragans Cf. the decree of Gregory IV, Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 406..

[15] and are similar to the election of St. Ulrich. Further, that even before the times of Otto the Great the emperors of Germany abused this licence of assenting is manifest from the Life of St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg. For his election, which was completed in the year 924, six years after the election of St. Unni, Gerhard his biographer declares thus In Pertz, vol. IV, page 387.: Bishop Hiltine having died, by the contrivance of his nephew Duke Burchard and of his other relatives, he was presented to King Henry, and the bishop's death was made known to his sublimity, and supplication was made that episcopal power might be granted by him to the aforesaid lord Oudalric. And the king, beholding the lordliness of his stature and learning the knowledge of his doctrine, giving assent to their petition, received him into his hands in the royal manner and honoured him with the office of the pontificate. These things having been so accomplished, returning from the king with cheerful mind and arriving at Augsburg, according to the king's edict they completed for themselves with powerful hand the investiture of the bishopric. And when the time of the Lord's nativity came, on the day of the solemnity of the Innocents, his ordination was carried out with the customary rite. That the election of another bishop, made by the clergy and people of Augsburg, preceded, and that this was omitted by the biographer because Henry the Fowler had made it void, is to me indeed, considering the usage of those times, beyond doubt: so that I see nothing in this narrative which greatly differs from the election of St. Unni as Adam narrates it: except that St. Ulrich is not read to have been invested by the emperor, but only received by him into his hands, namely by placing his own hands between the imperial hands, for the sake of rendering homage. But, I ask, is it not far more probable that the same was done with St. Unni, than that he was invested with the staff against custom?

§ III. Difficulties of the chronology of the prelates of Bremen and Hamburg.

The chronology of the prelates of Bremen and Hamburg confused. Now if it be asked at what time these things were done, we are led into a most intricate case. For it cannot be asked when St. Unni's episcopate began, nor in what year it ended, without the years of his predecessors and successors coming at the same time into controversy. The authority of Adam of Bremen too is called into question; what the brief Chronicle of Bremen is worth must be examined, and many other doubts arise. Since, however, we are not accustomed to flee labours of this kind, here too something must be attempted.

[17] The Corvey Computus, which Adam used, is a catalogue Before all things we must turn our eyes to the sources. Adam of Bremen often uses a little writing which he calls the Computus brought from Corvey In Pertz, vol. VII, page 278.. Lappenberg Ibid. page 268; page 297, note 21; p. 302, note 74 and 75; p. 403, note 86., the most praiseworthy recent editor of Adam, judges that this Computus is the Annals of Corvey; in which the things that happened chiefly from the year 658 to the year 1148 are noted year by year after the manner of chronicles; the first hand ceasing at the year 740, the second about the year 1028 or perhaps 1063, and so on. Pertz thought otherwise In Pertz, vol. III, page 2, note 2.; to whom I wholly adhere, since that Computus has nothing in common with these annals; and I go so far as to judge that that Computus was entirely similar to the Index of the bishops and archbishops of Bremen which Staphorst excerpted from the old book of donations and rules of St. Ansgar Hamburg. Kirchengeschichte, vol. III, page 529 and following.; so that I hold them to be two editions of the same little work, or two streams of the same source.

[18] of the bishops of Bremen and Hamburg. Let the tables be brought forward, from which the reader himself may judge. In the new chapter 37 of book I of Adam Ibid. page 297. it is read: Saint Rimbert sat 23 years. His years and the death of his predecessor we found in a certain Computus brought from Corvey. Chapter 47 Ibid. page 500.: Archbishop Adalgar sat 20 years. His years we have taken from the Computus as above. Chapter 53 Ibid. page 302.: Archbishop Hoger sat 7 years. His years too we found in the book above, and that he was ordained by the archbishop of Cologne through contention: this latter is lacking in the Bremen Index. On the other hand, as is plain from chapter 55 Ibid. page 303., mention of Reginward, which is made in the Bremen Index, was lacking in Adam's Computus. Chapter 56 Ibid. page cit.: Archbishop Unni sat 18 years. His years and death I learned as above. Afterward Adam omits to indicate whence he took the years of the individual archbishops, his sources having been sufficiently opened before. And from these it is plainly evident what kind of thing that little Corvey writing was. It certainly had the same form as the Bremen Index; so that the greatest difference lies in this, that, since the copyists of both seem to have laid a healing hand on the years, the years do not everywhere agree sufficiently with each other; and so

hence it came about that errors crept into both editions, though different ones. Nor should you object that this Computus was rather a Necrology; certainly Adam had a Hamburg Necrology in his possession: otherwise, whence would he have learned the day of death of each bishop? But the Computus brought from Corvey was not such a Necrology; although in the Life of St. Mathilda, queen of Germany and contemporary of St. Unni, Computarium is used for Necrology Acta SS. vol. II of March, page 369.; for what Adam found in his Computus is not entered in Necrologies.

[19] The manner of reckoning in another similar catalogue. Yet since the copy of that Bremen Index published by Staphorst is two hundred years later than Adam, I would not use it; especially as it can easily be supplied from elsewhere. More useful seems the writing which its editor Lappenberg called the Chronicle of Bremen In Pertz, vol. VII, page 390., but whose genuine title is: Series of the bishops of Bremen and Hamburg: for its aim is not to indicate what was done in each year, but how many years, months and days each bishop sat: if any other things are sprinkled in, this was done beyond the plan of the little work: so that it is of almost the same kind as so many catalogues of the Roman pontiffs, to use the comparison of a very well known thing. In general, however, no account is taken in it of the vacancy of the see; which time is ascribed to the successor: a notable example is Unwan; who, when St. Libentius had died on January 4 of the year 1013, was designated by Otto III on February 2 and consecrated by the prelates of Magdeburg, Schleswig and Skara; Oddo being rejected, whom the people of Hamburg had elected while St. Lubentius was living and commending him [Thietmar of Merseburg, book VI, chap. 53 and 54, in Pertz. vol. III, page 832; Annal, Quedlinb. ibid. page 81.]. Nevertheless Unwan, having died on January 27 of the year 1029 Adam of Bremen in Pertz, vol. VII. page 328., nay 1030 Annal. Hildesheim. in Pertz, vol. III, page 97., is said in the Chronicle of Bremen In Pertz, vol. VII. page 391. to have sat 16 years, 24 days. In which numbers it is to be noted that the days are reckoned hollow, or incomplete at both ends. The same method, however, is not observed everywhere; as will appear below in the case of St. Adalgar.

[20] At what time bishops were then elected in Germany For the rest, everywhere throughout Germany the election was made as soon as possible after the death, or rather the deposition, of the predecessors: at Constance after three days of prayers and fasts, as is read in both Lives of St. Conrad, bishop of Constance Ibid., vol. IV. page 432 and 438.: at Prague on the following Sunday, as is established from the Life of St. Adalbert the bishop Ibid. 584.; at Cologne before the body of the deceased was buried, as both biographers of St. Bruno witness Ibid. 258 and 275.; at Bremen on the very day of the deposition, as the election of St. Rimbert attests Ibid. vol. II, page 770.: so that this custom must be judged to have been borrowed from Cologne of the Ubii, its old metropolis. Nor otherwise at Hamburg, where we saw a little above that Unwan was elected even before St. Libentius had departed from life. That the day of deposition and of death is not always the same is a most certain thing [Jo. De Vita, Antiquit. Beneventanarum dissert. XI, vol. I, page 294 and following.]; although it seemed otherwise to the Rev. Mr. Binterim [Denkwüdigkeiten der Christ-kathol. kirche, vol. VI, part III, page 370 and following.]. Besides, it can easily be proved that in the catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs the sitting of almost each one is held to be prolonged up to the day of deposition, and that the memory was made rather on the anniversary of that deposition than on the anniversary of the death. Whether the same obtained at Bremen and Hamburg no one could say: wherefore for the most part the deaths and depositions of the bishops of Bremen and Hamburg cannot be distinguished.

[21] and in what manner. To which I should add that something of the custom by which the old Franks and other peoples of Germanic stock created their kings crept into the election of bishops: namely, that the elected were raised from the ground and shown to the whole people. Besides, at Cologne, and accordingly probably also at Bremen, immediately after the funeral of the predecessor four men of the clergy and four of the order of laymen were elected, to ask the emperor's assent to the election made. If this was granted, as it was customary to be, the newly elected were enthroned and consecrated somewhat afterward: but the space of time intervening between the election and the enthronement or consecration was sometimes very large. And these things premised, we may now pass to setting in order the years of the first bishops of Bremen and archbishops of Hamburg.

§ IV. The chronological order of the first eleven prelates of Bremen and eight of Hamburg.

ST. WILLEHAD,

FIRST BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Willehad was consecrated on July 13, 787; he died on Nov. 8, 789. After Charlemagne in the year 785 had again conquered the Saxons, so often subdued, and Widukind with his followers had been baptized, St. Willehad was permitted to return to Wigmodia, which he had formerly already cultivated, and to call those fierce peoples back to the faith of Christ. When, therefore, affairs there had taken a more stable form, Charles, staying at Worms, wished St. Willehad to be consecrated bishop of Bremen. That this was done on the third of the ides of July, or the 13th of that month, is established from the Life of St. Willehad In Pertz, vol. II, page 383. written by St. Ansgar himself, from the Chronicle of Moissac Ibid. vol. I, page 298., from the diploma of Charlemagne as Adam has preserved it for us Ibid. vol. VII, page 289., and from the yearly festal memory of this ordination, which the same Adam is authority was kept on the third of the ides of July Ibid. page 290.. That St. Willehad sat after his ordination 2 years, 3 months, 26 days, Adam of Bremen Ibid. vol. VII, page 290. and the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. page 390. agree, and it agrees with the indications of time which the contemporary Chronicle of Moissac gives. For according to this monument Ibid. vol. I, page 298. St. Willehad was ordained on July 13 of the year 787 and died on November 8 of the year 789. Nor can this year be abandoned. For it is established from the Life of St. Willehad Ibid. vol. II, page 383 and 384. that the cathedral church of Bremen was dedicated by that most holy prelate on the kalends of November, a Sunday, and that on the sixth of the ides of November, a Sunday, after sunrise, the confessor of the Lord rested in the name of Christ: which fall in the year 789, which had the dominical letter D. So that here the diploma of Charlemagne seems to be disregarded, as it has come to us through the hands of Master Adam Ibid. vol. VII, page 290. and by which the bishopric of Bremen was instituted, given on the day before the ides of July, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 788, indiction 12, in the 21st year of the lord Charles, at the Palace of Speyer: for the notes of time are corrupt, indiction 12 and the 21st year of Charles, in the month of July, coinciding not with the year of the Lord 788 but 789. Nor does Adam Ibid. page cit. seem to have known in what year St. Willehad laid down his life; for he wrote that this happened thirty-five years after the martyrdom of St. Boniface; by which we should be led to the year 790, the apostle of the Frisians having been slain on June 5 of the year 755. It is notable that St. Willehad was consecrated not on a Sunday or a feast of the Apostles, but on a plain Friday.

ST. WILLERIC,

SECOND BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Willeric, who died on May 4, 839, St. Willehad having died on November 8 of the year 789, St. Willeric succeeded, who in the year of the Lord's incarnation 838, indiction II (nay I), and in the 25th year of the empire of the lord Hludovic, most pious emperor, and in the 6th year of the ordination of Bishop Aldric (of Le Mans, consecrated on December 22 of the year 832 Gesta Adrici episc. Cenomann. in D. Bouquet, vol. VI, page 299.), on the day before the kalends of May, at the palace of Aachen, was still present at the judgment delivered concerning the monastery of Anisola Ibid. page 301., and in the aforementioned year 838, indiction I, on the 11th day of the month of September, that is, on the festival of the holy Martyrs Protus and Hyacinth, took part in the dedication of the church of Hirsau, as Trithemius is witness in both works Chronic. Hirsaug. page 6; Annales Hirsaug. vol. I, page 6.. Nay more, he lived on into the following year, since according to Adam In Pertz, vol. VII, page 290. he sat until the penultimate year of Louis the elder. Of the same, however, Adam writes further on Ibid. page 293.: Who died … in the year of the Lord 837, which is the 26th and penultimate year of Louis. He was buried on the 4th of the nones of May. But the best codex, called the third, has the year of the Lord 839; and the same third codex, and also the second and fourth, the 25th year of Louis: but everywhere penultimate is consistently read. And these are by all means to be retained, not only because the 25th or penultimate year of the emperor Louis ran from the end of January of the year 839 Cf. Art de vérifier les dates, vol. I, page 558., but also because Adam, as he himself is witness In Pertz, vol. VII, page 290., found it written … in the book of donations or traditions of the church of Bremen … that Willeric presided until the 25th year of Louis. The Annals of Corvey, therefore, are to be abandoned, in which at the year 838 is read Ibid. vol. III, page 3.: Willaricus, bishop; by which kind of expression deaths are usually indicated there; and the Annalista Saxo Ibid. vol. VI, page 574., referring Willeric's death to the year 837; but the year 839, as we have said, is by all means to be held. He sat, says the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. vol. VII, page 390., 50 years, 5 months, 26 days; where a whole year is in excess. And certainly Adam must have read in his copy 49 years, 5 months, 26 days, since he writes Ibid. page 290. that St. Willeric sat fifty years, of course incomplete (for he is accustomed to reckon incomplete years), and refers his death or burial to the 4th of the nones, or May 4 Ibid. page 293.; which day is distant from November 8, on which St. Willehad died, by five months and twenty-six days.

[24] seems to have been in exile from the year 792 to 804. But since it is written in the book of donations or traditions of the church of Bremen that Willeric presided from the 37th of Charles to the 25th year of Louis, 12 years fewer are found than the number we stated before. And it may be believed that the bishopric of Bremen was vacant for so long a time on account of the rebellion of the Saxons, which Charles subdued only in his 37th year, of Christ 804. This difficulty was proposed by Adam and solved by him thus Ibid. page 290.. But notices

Eckhart Hist. Franciae Orientalis, seu dioec. Wirceburg. vol. I, page 749. that the rebellion of the Saxons and the overthrow of sacred things perpetrated by them began only in the year 792, as the Chronicle of Moissac testifies In Pertz, vol. I, page 299., that the Saxons in this year, relying on the Avars, again abandoned Christianity, burned and laid waste the churches which were in their territory, cast out the bishops and presbyters who were over them, and seized and killed some of them. Between this revolution of affairs and St. Willehad's death, then, two years had intervened; in which who would doubt that St. Willeric was created bishop? That prelate, then, will have yielded to the storm in the year 792 and returned to his church in the year 804, in which we know from the Chronicle of Moissac Ibid. page 307. and from elsewhere that Charles's scarae, or legions, were sent into Wigmodia and to Bremen. Wherefore we judge that St. Willeric was indeed absent from his see for ten years, but that he was consecrated not long after the death of St. Willehad.

LEUDERIC,

THIRD BISHOP OF BREMEN.

[Leuderic, who died on August 24, 847, seems to have been consecrated on May 18, 839.] Bishop Liutric deacon of Villeric, succeeded him; sat 8 years, 3 months, 5 days; so the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. vol. VII, page 390.. But Adam: Leuderic, he says Ibid. page 293., third in order, sat eight years. Since we cannot know his years for certain, we have learned from the same book of traditions both that he was deacon of Willeric and that he sat until the sixth year of Louis the elder, written in chapter 58. Further on In Pertz, vol. VII, page 294. he sets the funeral of the emperor Louis alongside Leuderic's 3rd year, contradicting himself; since he said that his predecessor died in the penultimate year of Louis. Finally, having narrated St. Ansgar's expulsion from Hamburg, he adds Ibid. page 294 and 295.: After these things Leuderic, bishop of Bremen, died… And he departed on the ninth of the kalends of September, or August 24. And to begin the examination from this, this day seems to be retained, which Adam must be judged not to have found by reckoning but to have found written in the Necrology. These things being so, and since we have as sole guide the Chronicle of Bremen, we must say that Leuderic was ordained on May 18 of the year 839, which was a Sunday, and died on August 24, 847: so that he occupied the see of Bremen eight years, three months and five full days.

ST. ANSGAR,

FIRST ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND FOURTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Ansgar, about whose years there are manifold opinions, died in the year 865. Since at February 5 Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 391 and following. our Henschenius gave an excellent commentary on St. Ansgar, in which the origins and vicissitudes of the archbishopric of Hamburg and the causes of its union with Bremen are elucidated, we can abstain here from all these things, content with setting the chronology in order. Further, the older and more recent writers disagree greatly among themselves as to the year in which St. Ansgar was created archbishop of Hamburg: some lay down, as Mabillon does Annales Bened. book XXX, num. 39, vol. II, page 493., the beginning of the year 830; others the year 831, which is the opinion of Henschenius Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 391.; others the year 832, an opinion to which, although it is Adam's In Pertz, vol. VII, page 292., Carl Kraft says few adhere Narratio de Ansgario, etc. page 78.; others, whose column is led by Albert of Stade In Kulpis, Scriptt. rer. German. vol. II, page 200. and Krantz Metropol. book I, chap. 20, page 39, Cologne ed., 1574., the year 833; others finally the year 834, and indeed May 15, as Dahlmann not long ago conjectured Geschichte von Danem. vol. I, page 41. Cf. Reuterdahl, Ansgarius, page 210.. Let us begin from certain things. Langebek has shown by a great many authorities Scriptt. rer. Danic. vol. I, page 493, note o that St. Ansgar passed to heaven in the year 865. Enough for us is the contemporary Necrology of Fulda, which will afterward often be of the greatest help. In it is read among the dead of that year In Schannat, Hist. Fuld. vol. II, page 468.: Ansger, bishop and monk, the 2nd of the nones of February.

[27] [He died on February 3 and was buried the day after, when St. Rimbert was elected.] About the day there is some difficulty. For that his name is noted there on the 4th, or the day before the nones of February, and that on the same day the Fasti of St. Gall and the Necrology of St. Gall recall the memory of St. Ansgar; nay more, that the Swedish Missal and the Breviaries of Ratzeburg, Odense and Västerås set his festival then Cf. Langebek, vol. I, page 493 and 494, note o.; has long been a matter of wonder: for from his Life In Pertz, vol. II, page 723. it is certain that he died on the day after the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or February 3. Henschenius suspected that St. Ansgar's memory was moved by one day on account of the feast of St. Blaise Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 395, num. 20.; but this reason little pleased Mabillon Acta SS. Ord. S. Bened. saec. IV, part II, page 76., to whom it seemed that rather the festival of St. Blaise would have been transferred. I should add that Henschenius's argument does not hold for the Necrologies of Fulda and St. Gall, and much less for the Fasti of St. Gall, since the arrangement of feasts pertains only to calendars. Wherefore I judge that St. Ansgar died indeed on February 3, but was deposited or buried on the following day; which is also Henschenius's opinion Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 534 and 563.; although Adam says Cf. Langebek, vol. I, page 493 and 494. that his deposition was celebrated at Bremen and Hamburg on February 3: for in his age the day of death and of deposition were already very often confused. To embrace this opinion, namely that St. Ansgar was deposited on February 4, we are led by the twofold festival of St. Rimbert: the one on February 4, on which his election was recalled; the other on June 11, on which his death or deposition was celebrated: as will be said below; where we shall also demonstrate from his Life that he was elected on the very day of St. Ansgar's deposition.

[28] [At the beginning of Feb. 831 the erection of the bishopric of Hamburg is decreed at Aachen, and at the beginning of May 831 St. Ansgar is consecrated at Ingelheim,] The time of birth and the beginning of the episcopate of St. Ansgar may safely be deduced from this with the help of some indications which St. Rimbert, his biographer and successor, supplies, writing In Pertz, vol. II, page 722.: In the 64th year of his age, and the 34th of his episcopate, he began to labour with a grave bodily disease, namely a continual dysentery, with which, when he had laboured sharply for many days, namely four months and more, etc.; so that, when he fell into the disease about the end of September of the year 864, he had already begun the thirty-fourth year of his episcopate, and accordingly received the imposition of hands in the year 831 before the end of the same month. And from other circumstances that time can be further defined. Namely, from the diploma by which Louis the Pious, on the ides of May, in the 21st year, Christ being propitious, of his empire, indiction XII, at the royal palace of Aachen Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 405., confirmed to St. Ansgar the cell of Turholt in Flanders, and from the Life of the same saint Ibid. page 413. written by St. Rimbert, it becomes manifest that this consecration was carried out at an assembly of the whole empire by Drogo, bishop of Metz, with Ebbo of Reims, Hetti of Trier, Otgar of Mainz, Helingaud of Verden and Willeric of Bremen assisting; after the erection of the bishopric of Hamburg had been approved somewhat before at a very large assembly of a synod Ibid. loc. cit.. Now in the year 831 Louis held three general placita, as the Annals of St. Bertin testify In Pertz, vol. I, page 424.: the first at Aachen Astronom. Vita Ludov. Pii, in Pertz, vol. II, page 634. about the kalends of February Ann. Bertin. in Pertz, vol. [ , page 424.]; the second at Ingelheim about the kalends of May Ibid. page cit., and the third at Thionville, in the autumn season Astronomus, in Pertz, vol. II, page 634., but after the beginning of the month of October, in which he was still staying at Aachen Annal. Xantenses. in Pertz, vol. II, page 225., and most probably between the 4th and 19th of November, on which he gave two diplomas at Thionville [Cf. Le Cointe, Annal. eccles. at the year 831, num. 14, vol. VIII, page 183 and 184; D. Bouquet. vol. VI, page 574.]. At Thionville, therefore, St. Ansgar could not have been adorned with the sacred infula, as having been ordained before the month of October: it remains, then, that the province of Hamburg was decreed at Aachen at the beginning of February of the year 831, and that hands were imposed on its first prelate at Ingelheim at the beginning of May of the same year.

[29] [born a little before May 801. The error arose from the elevation of his body on Sept. 9.] And since one is made a priest at thirty years, as the Fathers of the council of Aachen of the year 816 say In Hartzheim. Concil. German. vol. I, page 440., it follows from this that St. Ansgar was born before the month of May of the year 801, and by no means on September 8 and 9, as Langebek judged Scriptt. rer. Danic. vol. I, page 431 and 496., and after him Dahlmann Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 38, and in Pertz, vol. II, page 689., Münter Kirchengeschichte von Dännemark, etc. vol. I. page 267. and Kraft Narratio de Ansgario, page 4.: relying on the argument that at the 9th day, or the 5th of the ides of September, in the Missals of Hamburg and Bremen [In Langebek, vol. I, page 431, note f. Staphorst, vol. III, page 318, and Leben des ber. Alberti Crantzii, page 134.] is read: Of Ansgar, confessor; and in the calendar of Lund, in which a Necrology is interspersed Ibid. vol. III, page 457.: Of Ansgar, bishop. But on account of the change of religion they forgot that the Catholic church has not been accustomed to celebrate other earthly birthdays besides those of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John the Baptist and St. Agnes. Besides, the calendar added to the Liber Daticus of Lund Ibid. vol III, page 548. discloses what the cause of that feast is, namely the translation of saint Ansgar, bishop and confessor. Of this translation, or rather elevation, Heinrich Wolter makes mention (In Meibom, vol. II, p. 25), relying on an old document, and writes: Blessed Anschar… was buried in the greater church at Bremen before the altar of the Virgin Mary on the day following the Purification, and afterward, through Blessed Reimbert, the lord apostolic admitting it, was elevated and enrolled in the catalogue of saints

on the day following the Nativity of St. Mary: concerning which a notable treatise, whose beginning is: To the most invincible creator, etc., is said to be contained with us, although it is very rare. The words elevation, translation, transmutation, etc., are synonyms, and designate the rite of canonization or beatification; on which matter no one has spoken more fully than Fontanini De S. Petro Urseolo, Dissert. page 45 and following.. Solemnities of that kind were customarily held on Sundays; and therefore it is probable that St. Ansgar was translated or elevated in the year 865, 871, 876 or 882.

[30] [At Mainz at the beginning of Oct. 847 it is decreed that Bremen is to be united to Hamburg: St. Ansgar is enthroned at Bremen on Sept. 23, 848.] We showed above that Leuderic, the third bishop of Bremen, was loosed from the bonds of the body on August 24 of the year 847; Adam adds that the church remained long widowed In Pertz, vol. VII, page 285.. God repaired that loss abundantly, bestowing Ansgar on the see of Bremen. In what manner these things were done is described most fully, to use Adam's words Ibid. page cit., in the Life of our prelate; but the time is obscurely noted, which the book of donations indicates more openly: namely, that in the ninth year of Louis the second the lord Ansgar was led into the bishopric by Aldric the cleric and Count Reginbald, the emperor's envoys. It is written in book III, chapter 20. But the ninth year of Louis the second, or the German, ended about June 20 of the year 849 [Cf. Wailly, Éléments de paléographie, vol. I, page 331, and Eckhart, Hist. Saxoniae Orient. vol. II, page 405.]; wherefore St. Ansgar must have received the bishopric of Bremen before that time. And indeed on September 23 of the preceding year, which was a Sunday, he was enthroned at Bremen, if we take account of the months and days which the Brief Chronicle of Bremen supplies, though erring in the years and relating In Pertz, vol. VII, page 390.: St. Ansgar the bishop, before he received the bishopric of Bremen, sat at Hammaburg 16 years (nay 18 incomplete); having received the bishopric of Bremen, he sat 18 years (nay 16), four months, ten days. But since this business had been treated before in a public assembly of bishops, as St. Rimbert narrates Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 417., we willingly agree with Henschenius Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 392. that this was done at the council of Mainz, celebrated about the kalends of October of the year 847 Cf. Annales Fuldenses, in D. Bouquet, vol. VII, page 161., since the synodal letter shows that St. Ansgar was present at that very council In Hartzheim, Concil. German., vol. II, page 152..

[31] One difficulty remains. While these things were being done, are the words of St. Rimbert Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 417., [A difficulty arising from Heynianus, or Hilduin, bishop of St. Martin's at Cologne.] the city of Cologne, to which the parish of Bremen was suffragan, was at that time living without episcopal benediction; which, as is established from what follows, is to be understood of the see being vacant, although Eckhart Hist. Saxon. Orient. vol. II, page 405. and after him the most diligent Morckens Conatus chronol. ad catal. epp. Coloniae, page 62 and 63. bent it in another direction. Now in the Chronicle of St. Martin of Cologne Ibid. page 63, and in Pertz, vol. II, page 214. we read: Afterward (after the year 817) Heynianus, an illustrious man, presided as abbot, who was made archbishop of Cologne. He died in the year 849; namely on the 5th of the kalends of October, on which he is noted in the Necrology of St. Martin In Morckens, page 63, and Binterim, Suffraganei Colonienses extraord. page 13. and on which every year, as the Chronicle has it, his memory was to be kept. (That Heynianus seems to be the same as Hilduin, who, as the Very Brief Annals of Cologne relate In Pertz, vol. I, page 97., received the bishopric of Cologne in the year 842.) On the other side, on the testimony of the same Annals Ibid. loc. cit., Guntar was made bishop of Cologne on the 12th of the kalends of May; so that St. Ansgar would seem to have been created bishop within the space of six months which ran from September 27 to April 20. But that Heynianus was not properly archbishop of Cologne, but bishop and abbot in the Rhine monastery of St. Martin near the city of Cologne, as is read in a charter of Egilbert of the year 843 In Binterim, Suffraganei, page 13., whether he was vicar of the archbishop for the spiritual affairs of the monks of the whole diocese, or bishop for his own monastery only: which thing was common enough in that age See above, page 314.. Wherefore, to recall in a few words the times of St. Ansgar, we judge that he was born somewhat before the month of May of the year 801: created archbishop of Hamburg at the beginning of May of the year 831; designated bishop of Bremen, or at least that his designation was treated, about the kalends of October of the year 847; that he was enthroned at Bremen on September 23 of the year 848, and finally died on February 3 of the year 865 and was buried the day after.

ST. RIMBERT,

SECOND ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND FIFTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Rimbert, elected Feb. 4, 865, died on II June 888 On the very day of the deposition of the lord Anschar, we recite the words of St. Rimbert's biographer Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 562., the clergy and people with one accord elected Rimbert. We have shown above that these things seem to have been done on the fourth day of February; both because several documents attach the memory of St. Ansgar to the fourth day of February, and because the festival of St. Rimbert was formerly celebrated at Bremen Cf. Staphorst, Hamburg. Geschichten, vol. III, page 310. and entered in many calendars Cf. Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 534., which can be no other than the memory of his election. According to the Chronicle of Bremen Staphorst, page 390. St. Rimbert sat 23 years, four months, eight (hollow) days. Further, since Adam teaches Ibid. page 300., and many calendars agree Cf. Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 555., that the deposition is on the 3rd of the ides of June, or the 11th, it follows from this that he died in the year of the Lord 888, indiction VI, as Adam says In Pertz, vol. VII, page 301., with whom the Necrology of Fulda agrees In Schannat, Hist. Fuld. vol. II, page 470., and indeed on the 3rd of the ides of June, as the Annals of Corvey have it In Pertz, vol. III, page 3.; so that he seems to have been deposited on the same day on which he died.

ST. ADALGAR,

THIRD ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND SIXTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Adalgar, who died on May 9, 910, Archbishop Adalgar, who succeeded, says Adam In Pertz, vol. VII, page 300., sat 20 years. His years we have taken from the Computus (brought from Corvey) as above… And he was consecrated Ibid. page 301 and 302. by Sunderold, archbishop of Mainz … The archbishop passed away in the year of the Lord 909, on the 7th of the ides of May, or the 9th of this month. That this is the day of his death is certain, since the Necrologies of Hamburg, Lüneburg, Merseburg and Möllenbeck agree, as Lappenberg notes Ibid. page cit. note 73.. Our predecessors undeservedly placed him among those passed over on this day; since, to pass over other things, his relics, together with the relics of St. Unni, were observed with ecclesiastical honours at Corvey, as was shown above at num. 8. In the year the Annals of Corvey Ibid. vol. III, page 4. agree with Adam; the Necrology of Fulda In Schannat, vol. II, page 471. disagrees, recording Archbishop Adalger among the men who died in the year 910. This is a much more powerful authority; not only because it is a contemporary monument, but also because, if you put St. Adalgar's death earlier, the times of his successors are wholly thrown into confusion: as will sufficiently appear from what will have to be said about Hoger, Reinward and St. Unni.

[54] [perhaps before the death of St. Rimbert, like St. Willehad formerly, he was called bishop,] A much greater difficulty arises if one comes to investigate the beginning of his episcopate. First of all, it could easily have happened that St. Adalgar was called archbishop long before his consecration, nay even before the death of St. Rimbert, no differently from St. Willehad formerly, of whom St. Ansgar relates this in his Life In Pertz, vol. II, page 383.: He was the first to obtain the pontifical see in that diocese (of Bremen) … for seven years before he stayed as a presbyter in the same parish, yet called bishop, and ordering all things, as far as he could, with the power of one presiding. For the same reason urged that St. Adalgar should be adorned with the same title; since St. Rimbert's biographer relates this Acta SS. vol. II of February, page 565.: With … Louis and Charles (kings of Germany) he (St. Rimbert) obtained this, that the distinguished man Adelgar, namely a monk of New Corvey, granted to him, as we related above, should be so confirmed as his helper that, whenever any infirmity hindered him, he should have in him a support for going round the bishopric, attending the placita, and, when it was required, setting out with his retinue on an expedition or to the palace; and not long after he obtained that the election of succeeding him should be confirmed in him, and that by the reception of hands that man should become the king's man and be placed among his counsellors; the abbot and brethren of his monastery assenting and the holy synod confirming all these things.

[35] [and certainly before his consecration, as from the synods of Mainz of the year 888 and of Forchheim of the year 991,] Certainly after St. Rimbert's death and before his own consecration St. Adalgar bore the name of archbishop or bishop. For when he took part in the placitum or, if you prefer, the synod celebrated at Mainz in the latter part of the year 888, and there with eighteen other archbishops and bishops subscribed the diploma of New Corvey In Hartzheim, vol. II Conc. Germ. page 379., of whose genuineness another diploma of the year 1120 does not allow us to doubt Martène and Durand, Collect. ampl. vol. I, col. 661.; he signed with these words: Adalgar, archbishop of the church of Hammaburg, consented and subscribed. But you will say that this is not the norm of subscribing for a bishop or archbishop not yet consecrated; that at the council of Ingelheim of the year 840 three bishops elected and not yet consecrated did not call themselves simply bishops, but Amalric called bishop of Como, Ratulf called bishop (of Strasbourg) and Harcarius called bishop (of uncertain see), and subscribed in that form to the restoration of Ebbo of Reims [In Hartzheim, vol. II, page 140; cf. the Narrative of a cleric of Reims in D. Bouquet, vol. VII. page 278.], because they were not yet consecrated. But, I ask, if St. Adalgar was already consecrated in the year 888, why did he subscribe not among the archbishops, but after Hildegrin, bishop of Halberstadt? Why likewise at the synod or placitum held at the royal palace of Forchheim in the year of the Lord's incarnation 990, indict. VIII

and in the 3rd year of the reign of the most pious king Arnulf, that is, after November 11, did he subscribe the diploma of Corvey, which Falke published from the autograph Traditiones Corbejenses, page 598 and 599., not immediately after Sunderhold, archbishop of Mainz, and Hartmann, archbishop of Cologne, but even after Bishop Arnold (of Würzburg), Wibert (of Hildesheim), Hrodberht, bishop of the see of Metz, Godethank (of Speyer), Egilmar (of Osnabrück) and Erkanbald (of Eichstätt)? What of the fact that he does not call himself archbishop, but writes: sign of Adalgar, bp.? What of the fact that his name is passed over in silence at the beginning of the diploma, which is conceived in these words: I, Sunderhold, humble archbishop of the see of Mainz, together with the venerable archbishop of the city of Cologne, Herimann, and also with our other fellow bishops and fellow priests, etc.? For the rest, since he had already administered the diocese of Hamburg for several years and borne the person of a bishop, and since perhaps he was forbidden by Willebert and then Hartmann, archbishops of Cologne, who were present at the placita of Mainz and Forchheim, to be consecrated before he acknowledged their authority by reason of the diocese of Bremen; who would exact all things according to the ordinary laws?

[36] [and seems to be established from his consecration, carried out by Sunderold of Mainz on April 7, 891.] Certainly, if that explanation should displease, credit must be denied to Adam and to the Brief Chronicle of Bremen. For the former states that St. Adalgar was consecrated by Sunderold, archbishop of Mainz; but since, according to the Necrology of Fulda In Schannat, vol. II, page 470., Liutbraht, Sunderold's predecessor, died in the year 889, and indeed on the 7th of the ides of September, as is related in the Necrology of St. Maurice of Mainz Cf. Joannis, Moguntiae. rer. book IV, on Liadbert. num. 14. vol I, page 414., it is necessary that St. Adalgar was not consecrated immediately after his election. For this consecration there seems to have been place on April 7 of the year 891, since the Chronicle of Bremen In Pertz, vol. VII, page 390. relates that St. Adalgar sat 19 years, eleven months, two days, and Adam 20 years, certainly incomplete, and computed no longer from the day of election but of consecration.

HOGER,

FOURTH ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG, SEVENTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

Hoger, elected May 9, 910, was deposited on Dec. 20, 917. Archbishop Hoger, who came after, sat 7 years, and his years too we found in the book above, says Adam Ibid. page 302 and 303.; he died, and was buried in the church of St. Michael with his predecessor, in the year of the Lord 915. The deposition is held on the 13th of the kalends of January, or December 20. An error lurks in the years, since the Necrology of Fulda In Schannat, vol. II, page 471. and the almost contemporary Annals of Fulda In Pertz, vol. III, page 5. refer Hoger's death to the year 917, and the Brief Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. vol. VII, page 391. ascribes to him 7 years, 7 months and 12 days: that the days were incomplete is plain from Adam. And by this space of time May 9 of the year 910 is distant from December 20 of the year 917.

REGINWARD,

FIFTH ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND EIGHTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

Reginward, elected Dec. 20, 817, was buried on Oct 1, 918. Reginward, says Adam Ibid. page 303., sat scarcely one year… He was deposited on the (others, III) kalends of October. On the kalends of October the calendar of Merseburg agrees Ibid. page 303, note 85.. But the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. page 391.: Reginward sat nine months, thirteen days. December 20 of the year 917 is distant from the first day of October of the year 918 by nine months and thirteen hollow days. I have lacked Lappenberg's writing on Reginward.

ST. UNNI,

SIXTH ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND NINTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Unni, elected Oct. 1, 918, died in the year 936 As in other places, here too the indications of time that are read in Adam do not agree with those he had set forth before: Archbishop Unni, he says Ibid. page 303 and 305., sat 18 years. His years and death I learned as above (from the Computus brought from Corvey)… And he died, having completed the course of the good fight, in Scythia, as is written, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 936, indiction 9, about the middle of September: for if you add 18 years to the year 916, in which according to Adam Reginward would have died, we should come not to the year 936 but to 934. But this is Adam's praise, that he preferred simply to write down the numbers he found rather than correct them by reckoning. And indeed those numbers are right. For from the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. page 391. it is established that King Conrad died in the first year of this pontiff; and so, since Conrad, having received a wound, perished on December 24 of the year 918 [Necrolog. Fuld. in Schannat, vol. II, page 471; cf. Art de vérifier les dates, vol. II, page 9.], St. Unni must have been instituted in the same year; and since the Continuator of Regino of Trier In Pertz, vol. I, page 617., a writer of the tenth century, and the Annalist of Einsiedeln Ibid. vol. III, page 141 and 4., who followed him about the year 1000, and also the Annalist of Corvey Ibid. vol. III, page 141 and 4., an author of the beginning of the eleventh century, agree with Adam that St. Unni died in the year 936, it becomes manifest that this prelate of Hamburg sat about 18 years; so that in the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. vol. VII, page 391., in which it is read that he sat 16 years, 11 months, 17 days, one year has dropped out.

[40] on September 17 Adam seems to have found the same days and months and this missing year in his Computus, and to have gathered from them that St. Unni died about the middle of September: namely, from October 1 to September 17 are 11 months, 17 hollow days. Nor is his death to be moved from September 17, although Ferrarius, from the Swedish Calendar and Missal, places his feast on the 15th: for this calendar and Missal, after Ferrarius's most unhappy manner, are mere trappings for the people; nor is St. Unni's death to be put off to October 21, on which Molanus first marked him and after him innumerable others: for this was done at pleasure, because (as is plain from the added notes) the illustrious martyrologist did not know on what day the holy man had died or was venerated; but, I say, September 17 is by all means to be kept, since the time of St. Adaldag entirely demands it.

ST. ADALDAG,

SEVENTH ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND TENTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Adaldag died on April 28 or 29, 988. For on the testimony of Adam Ibid. page 316., St. Adaldag's departure took place in the year of the Lord 988; with which the Necrology of Fulda agrees In Schannat, vol. II, page 476, to say nothing of more recent writings. He sat, says Adam In Pertz, vol. VII, page 306., 53 years: the copyist of one codex corrected it to 54 years, because Adam himself wrote further on Ibid. page 316.: Adaldag … passed to the Lord in the 54th year of his nobly administered priesthood… And he died in the first indiction, on the 3rd (other codices, 4th) of the kalends of May. But the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. page 391. assigns him 54 years, 7 months, eleven days. It is manifest, therefore, that errors are not lacking, and that St. Adaldag sat 52 years, 7 months, 11 days, and died on April 28 or 29 of the year 988. Our predecessors placed him among those passed over at April 29 Acta SS. vol. III of April, page 611.. Yet indications of cult are not lacking.

ST. LIBENTIUS,

EIGHTH ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG AND ELEVENTH BISHOP OF BREMEN.

St. Libentius, elected April 29, died on January 4, 1013. St. Libentius, Libentio, Liavinzo, Luizo, Liavizo, Liebitzo, Lievizon (so many different forms of one name), according to the Chronicle of Bremen Ibid. page cit. sat 25 years, 10 months, 7 days; according to Adam Ibid. page 316 and 322. 25 years, … and he died in the year of the Lord 1013, and was buried in the middle of the choir before the steps of the sanctuary; which was done on the day before the nones of January, in the eleventh indiction. Indiction 11 and the year 1013 agree with each other; the Annals of Quedlinburg Ibid. vol. III, page 81. and the Albian Annals In Langebek, vol. I, page 201., Helmold Chron. Slavor. book I, chap. 17, In Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw. vol. II, page 553. and others support it. Nay more, Thietmar of Merseburg Chron. book VI, chap. 53, in Pertz, vol. III, page 831 and 832., far surpassing these and others in authority, as being contemporary, describes at length the holy death of Libentius and attaches it also to the year 1013: so that one year is certainly in excess in the Chronicle of Bremen. Adam relates that St. Libentius died or was buried on the day before the nones of January, or the 4th, the Necrology of Lüneburg agreeing Cf. Lappenberg, in Pertz, vol III, page 832, note 17.. And from these one must by no means depart, although the Chronicle of Bremen, by assigning to St. Libentius ten months and seven days, seems to put off his death to the 4th, or the day before the nones, of February, and Thietmar of Merseburg does so in express words, beyond his intention, writing Ibid. page 832.: The Lord's day dawned, and that blessed father, committing with his spirit, with hands raised, the flock subject to him to the supreme shepherd, having died on the 2nd of the nones of February, goes whither living he had striven. By a manifest slip of the pen the month of February has been substituted by Thietmar for January; for that chronicler continues to speak of things done within the month of January; and, what is chief, in the year 1013 Sunday, marked by the letter D, falls not on February 4 but on January 4. Rightly and deservedly, therefore, did Bolland, following certain Calendars, speak of St. Libentius in our work at this day Acta SS. vol. I of January, page 180 and following.: would that besides Adam he had had at hand the other works which were afterward discovered! For St. Libentius was illustrious for holiness of life and many deeds laudably done, and he closes the series of the archbishops of Hamburg whose names are inserted in the sacred lists. The rest of the chronology of the archbishops of Hamburg does not concern us.

§ V. The privilege of John X corrupted; the confusion of the synod of Altheim and the assembly of Erfurt with the synod of Erfurt. An exchange of goods.

The privilege granted to St. Unni by Pope John X, Against what we have argued so far many things could be objected; but all those things seem to be disregarded which do not pertain closely to St. Unni. But among those which are bound up with the deeds of this most blessed man, the diploma of Pope John X comes first, which Staphorst first published Hamburg. Kirchen-Geschichte, vol. I, page 278., more recently Lappenberg Hamburg. Urkund. vol. I, page 39.

and Migne Patrologia, vol. CXXXII, col. 813 and 814.. It runs thus: John, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved fellow brother Wenni al. Unni, venerable archbishop of the church of Hammenburg, to you and your successors for ever. It befits apostolic governance to come to the help with kindly compassion of those strong in pious al. pre-eminent religion, and to grant assent with eager devotion to the minds of those who ask. For from this we without doubt merit the reward of the greatest gain with God, when venerable places, opportunely ordered, have been brought by us to a better state. Therefore, since you have asked of us that we should confirm the whole archbishopric of Hammaburg in its integrity to you and your successors, as was decreed by blessed Gregory, Nicholas and our other predecessors, inclined by your prayers, we send you the pallium according to custom, and whatever things were given by them to your church and to your predecessors and confirmed by privileges, we grant to you by apostolic authority and confirm by our privilege, namely all things which generally and specially pertain to the same archbishopric, and which your predecessors acquired by their labours, or even which out of love of the eternal homeland have been bestowed there by the faithful of Christ or are still being bestowed; together also with those who at this time have been converted to the faith of Christ, the grace of God procuring and protecting, namely the bishops in all the nations of the Swedes, or Danes, Norwegians, Iceland, the Scridevinni, Greenland and of all the northern nations, and also in those parts of the Slavs which are from the river Pene to the river Egidore; so that they may remain under the power of you and your successors, archbishops of the church of Hammaburg, or whatever, divine grace favouring, can be acquired by us * from error through faith, whether of men or of places, to the Christian religion, we decree to be held perpetually and retained inviolably by you and your successors. And moreover we have decreed that none of the archbishops, either of Cologne or any other whatever, shall claim for himself any power in your diocese, and so forth. We also permit your head to be adorned with the mitre, which is the badge of the Romans. And if anyone should presume to go against this privilege of our authority, let him be anathema; but whoever piously observes it, may he obtain grace and blessing from our Lord Jesus Christ. Given on the 4th of the kalends of November by the hands of Leo, chancellor of the holy see of Rome. In the first year of the Lord Pope John, indiction VIIII.

[44] is corrupt. This letter seems not only interpolated but also corrupt. For, to begin from the closing clause, indiction IX coincides only with the years 906, 921 and 936; but John X sat from the end of April 914 until the end of May of the year 928 Art de vérifier les dates, vol. I, page 268., and John XI from March 20 of the year 931 until the beginning of January of the year 936 Ibid. page 269.. The first year of either John, then, does not coincide with indiction IX; and if you set aside the indiction, you are not helped: in the month of October of the first year of John X the year of Christ 914 was running, in which certainly St. Unni was not bishop; but the first year of John XI agrees with the year 931, at which time St. Unni had long had the pallium. Besides, bishops in all the nations of the Swedes, or Danes, Norwegians, Iceland, the Scridevinni, Greenland, etc., are ordered to remain in St. Unni's power, as if they had already been created, when yet most certainly there were then no bishops there. So that, even if all these lands had been known to navigators at the beginning of the tenth century, I should still not agree with Pertz Monum. Germ. vol. II. page 765, note 1., contending against Henschenius Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 402 and 560. and Dahlmann In Pertz, vol. II, page 683, 684 and 699. that the Lives of SS. Ansgar and Rimbert in some German codices, and some Hamburg diplomas in which similar things are read, were not interpolated when Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg, under the emperor Henry IV aspired to the patriarchate of the north. For those bishops are certainly fictitious; next, the zealous hand of interpolators has been manifestly detected above all in the Life of St. Ansgar; and lastly, Adam of Bremen does not seem to have read these things in the copy which he had before his eyes; for he writes only this Ibid. vol. VII, page 303.: To whom also (St. Unni) Pope John the tenth, as the privilege indicates, gave the pallium.

[45] [St. Unni was not present at the council of Altheim, to which the subscriptions of the council of Erfurt were sewn on:] There can be opposed to our chronological deduction, besides, the argument by which Adam of Bremen seemed to himself to have established the age of Reginward, St. Unni's predecessor. For he wrote Ibid. page 303.: Reginward sat scarcely one year. Of his life nothing besides his name has come to hand. But since I have learned that his successor was present at the council at Altheim, which was held in the fifth year of King Conrad, in which our Hoger also died, I have found that Reginward, between them, did not live a full year, nor could I find his privilege anywhere. If, then, we give credit to Adam, St. Unni was bishop in the year from the incarnation of the Lord 916, the fourth indiction, on the 12th of the kalends of October, and in the fifth year of the reign of Conrad, most pious and most Christian king, when the holy synod was assembled at Altheim, in the district of Raetia, there being present namely Peter, apocrisiarius of the lord Pope John, venerable bishop of the holy church of Orte: such is about the beginning of this synod, which Pertz not long ago published Monum. Germ. Leges, vol. II, page 555 and following. from a codex of the tenth century, formerly of the cathedral church of Freising, now of the Munich archive.

[384] But Adam was led into error either by some corrupt copy of the synods or by Burchard of Worms. as is shown from the facts and persons; Namely, at chapter 37 [Monum. German. Leges, vol. II, page 560. Cf. Burchard, book I, chap. 227, Patrologia. vol. CXL, col. 614.] of the synod of Altheim there are read, sewn on in Burchard, the same subscriptions which belong to the Assembly of Erfurt, only Burchard of Würzburg and Tuoto of Osnabrück being passed over. But that those are not the subscriptions of the synod of Altheim of the year 916 is gathered from three heads; of which the first is that by canon or chapter 30 In Pertz, Leges, vol. II, page 559. of the synod of Altheim it is indicated that none from Saxony were present at that council, while yet among those subscriptions is read the sign of St. Unni, prelate of Hamburg, of Adalward of Verden, Unewan of Paderborn, Bernard of Halberstadt, Rumald of Mimigardeford and Eber of Minden; and only the prelates of Osnabrück and Hildesheim are absent. The second argument is given by canon 39 Ibid. page cit., which Burchard Book I, chap. 162, Patrologia, vol. CXL, col. 597. calls the 10th, by which the absence of Ricuin, bishop of Strasbourg, is blamed and by which he is cited to the next synod of Mainz into the presence of the venerable Archbishop Heriger; but Ricuin's subscription comes among those others, as also that of Hildebert, not of Heriger, archbishop of Mainz. The third point is sought from the age of the subscribing bishops. Hildebert, archbishop of Mainz, sat from the year 927 to 936; Robert of Trier from 930, or rather 931, to 956; St. Unni of Hamburg: about him is our question; Adalward of Verden is known to have sat in the year 932; Ricuin of Strasbourg sat from the year 913 to August 30 of the year 933; Noting of Constance from 920 to 935: Unewan of Paderborn from 915 to 935; Ulrich of Augsburg from 923 to 973; Bernard of Halberstadt from 926 to 968; Rumald of Mimigardeford, or Münster, from 922 to 941; and lastly Ever of Minden from 922 to 949 [Cf. Binterim, Geschichte der Deutschen Concilien, vol. I, page 281 and following; vol. III, page 273 and 274; Gallia Christ. vol. V, col. 788 and vol. XIII, col. 396; Grandidier, Histoire de l'Église de Strasbourg, vol. II, page 308 and 309; Chronicum Gotwicense, vol. I, page 152.]. From these it follows that it can by no means be that the synod to which these bishops subscribed was held in the time of King Conrad, or in the year 916, as Burchard states; nor in the year 936, as the Gallia Christiana will have it Vol. XIII, col. 396.; but between the year 930, or rather 931 (since Robert of Trier was ordained only in this year, and bishops elect were customarily distinguished from the consecrated by some sign), and the month of August of the year 933, in which Ricuin of Strasbourg died.

[47] two councils were not celebrated at Altheim; The reader will ask, then, whether within this space of time a second synod was held at Altheim. Mansi Supplementum Concil. vol. I, col. 1105 and following., Berardi Berardi, Canones Gratiani, etc. part I, chap. 60, vol. I, page 433., Binterim Geschichte der Deutschen Concilien, vol. III, page 274 and following. and others affirm it. But it must be observed that no ancient historian at all breathes a word of a second Altheim synod of that kind; and that none of its canons are known: for the one which Mabillon thrusts forward Annales Bened. at the year 936, num. 68, vol. III, page 396. from the Farfa codex, and Berardi from the Decree of Gratian Can. 1, caus. 18, quaest. 1., is canon 36 of the synod of Altheim of the year 916 In Pertz, Leges, vol. II, page 560.; and the one which was formerly first in the printed editions Cf. Hartzheim, Concil. German. vol. II, page 588., and is lacking in Pertz's edition Leges, vol. II, page 555. (namely, if anyone with his wife, etc.), Mansi long ago noticed to be word for word canon 41 of the council of Tribur of the year 895 Supplementum Concil. vol. I, col. 1106.. Next, the argument by which Mansi himself judges that two councils of Altheim are to be distinguished has its foundation in a corruption of Burchard's reading. For what he says, that Peter presided over one and John over the other, arose from this, that in place of by the authority of saint Peter, and of John his vicar, the lord pope, as the genuine reading has it In Pertz, Leges, vol. II, page 559., he read in Burchard Book I, chap. 162, Patrologia, vol. CXL, col. 597.: By the authority of saint Peter, I John, vicar of the apostolic one; so Peter and John were not legates, but Peter, of Pope John X. What then? As I intimated at the beginning, I do not doubt at all that Burchard sewed onto the council of Altheim of the year 916 the subscriptions of the council of Erfurt of the year 932; being led to it because he used the Palatine codex, now at Rome, in which the synod of Erfurt is treated as part of the synod of Altheim, as Augustin Theiner has noticed Disquisitiones criticae in collectiones, etc. page 332 and following. and after him Pertz Leges, vol. II, page 554.. All of which now more clearly

have been placed in light, from the time when, through the Freising codex of the tenth century already praised above, it has been possible to examine all these things more accurately.

[48] St. Unni was present at the council of Erfurt of the year 932; St. Unni, then, was present at no synod of Altheim, but only at the synod of Erfurt. This is its beginning according to that Freising, now Munich, codex Ibid. page 18.: In the year from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 932, in the 14th year also of the lord Henry, most Christian king, in the 5th indiction, on the day of the kalends of June, the holy and universal synod was assembled at Erphesfurt, as the most wise king decreed with the counsel of his chief men, the clemency of the Saviour of all inspiring it, for the advantage and state of holy mother church. The skilful conduct of which matter the zeal of the most prudent man, Archbishop Hiltibert, governed. The names of the two other archbishops and the ten bishops we have sufficiently indicated above; there were present also many other abbots and clerics, whose names are not given. Burchard relates that Henry was present Book XI, chap. 77, Patrologia, vol. CXL, col. 874.; and rightly, since Pertz Leges, vol. II, page 18. reports that on the same day and year diplomas were given by Henry the Fowler at Erfurt. It is not worth while to inquire into these; but there offers itself spontaneously among the Traditiones Fuldenses Schannat, Tradit. Fuld. page 234 a precept of Henry, at the end of which is read: Given on the 3rd of the nones of June, in the 5th indiction, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 932. Done at Erpesfurt happily. Amen: so that on June 3 of the year 932, or two days after the beginning of the synod, Henry was certainly at Erfurt.

[49] [to which several things of the assembly of 935 and of the synod of Altheim of the year 916 are falsely ascribed.] Wherefore I would not agree with the most learned priest Binterim Geschichten der Deutschen Concilien, vol. III, page 275, note 2., who wishes the kalends of June to be changed to those of July, because June 1 of the year 932 was not a Monday, on which synods were customarily held; but July 1 likewise was not a Monday, but a Sunday. Besides, I should not believe that the law of holding synods on Monday was so general as to admit no exceptions. However that may be, it is clear, as Pertz has noticed Leges, vol. II, page 18., that the Annals of Hildesheim Pertz, Monum. hist. vol. III, page 54 and 55., the Continuator of Regino Ibid vol. I, page 617. and others Cf. Binterim, etc. vol. III, page 275, note 1. err in referring this synod to the years 935 or 936; unless rather they are to be understood (and this is my opinion) of the assembly of the magnates at Erfurt, which Henry gathered somewhat before his death for designating his successor; as the biographer of Queen Mathilda is a rich witness Ibid. vol. IV, page 288. Cf. Struve, Corpus Hist. German. 230.. Hence correct those who state that at the synod of Erfurt of the year 932 Henry's successor was treated of Cf. Falkenstein, Historie von Erfurth, page 31.; for they seem to have been misled by a manifest confusion. Precepts were laid down in five canons on the order of feasts and fasts and on the continence of clerics In Pertz, Leges, vol. II, page 18.. Burchard Book XI, chap. 77, Patrologia, vol. CXL, col. 874. cites chapter or canon 9 on avoiding the excommunicated. Mansi accepted it as genuine Supplem. Concil. vol. I, col. 1117.; but Pertz omitted it, because it was not found in the Freising codex, nor in the codex of Lindanus, from which that synod of Erfurt first passed into the collections of Councils. Latomus Catalog. archiep. Mogunt. in Mencke, Scriptt. Germ. vol. III, page 470., Serarius Scriptt. rer. Mogunt. vol. I, page 426., Falckenstein Historie von Erfurth, page 31., Binterim Geschichten der deutschen Concilien, vol. III, page 277. and others very greatly praise the fathers of this synod because at the beginning they publicly cast themselves on the ground and bewailed the sins of the clergy. But this is not the praise of St. Unni and his colleagues at the synod of Erfurt, but of the fathers of the synod of Altheim of the year 916: as the prologue of this council attests In Pertz, Leges, vol. II, page 555..

[50] An exchange of some goods in the diocese of Verden. Although St. Unni, as will be seen below, had already gone beyond the borders of Germany, yet at his petition Henry the Fowler, on the 9th of the kalends of June in the year of the Lord's incarnation 935, the 8th indiction, the 17th of his reign, gave at Duisburg a diploma by which he confirmed an exchange made by St. Unni, or Unno, with Willarius, or Wallericus, a nobleman. What episcopal goods St. Unni gave is not indicated; but the aforesaid Willarius, with the hand of Rasmada his wife and of Theodulph his son, handed over to the aforesaid bishopric, into the hand of Unno, bishop of that church, and of Ulfrid, also his advocate, whatever property he was seen to have in the places called Holtgibutli, Holthem, Fokaresha, Niantorp, Omanthorp, Walle, Magulum, Rikinburgi and Damisla, with courts, buildings, serfs, cultivated and uncultivated lands and all appurtenances that can be spoken of and named. This charter was published by Mader Adam of Bremen, Hist. eccles. append. page 204 and 205., Lindenbrog Scriptt. rer. Septentrion. page 129., Meibom Rer. Germ. vol. I, page 739., Staphorst Hamburgische Kirchen-Geschichte, vol. I, page 281., Lünig Spicil. eccles. part I app. page 77., Leuber De stapula Saxoniae, page 1588., Gundling De Henrico Aucupe, page 311. and others. All those places I judge to be situated in the bishopric or principality of Verden, which lay to the east, or rather to the south-east, of that of Bremen. For in this tract, which I judge to have been the district of Sturmi, Sturmgoe or Stormuse, and about which Godfrey, abbot of Göttweig, discourses a little Chron. Gotwic. prodr. vol. II, page 785., the geographical maps give me Holzbuttel, Hottum or Holthum, Nindorf, Walle, Reichenbostel and Dauelsen, which is perhaps the same as Damisla, by others Dannisla or Domista: which villages are almost all enclosed in a triangle whose vertices are the towns of Rotenburg, Visselhövede and Verden. Further off, near Zeven, lies the village of Oldendorf, perhaps representing Omanthorp; nearer, on the left of the Wisuris (Weser), between Verden and Hoya, you have Magelsen, perhaps the same as Magulun: but these divinations I leave to the learned of those parts. That the bishopric of Bremen should acquire goods in the diocese of Verden is no wonder: it had there an entire monastery, of which below.

* vobis?

§ VI. What the condition of religion was in the regions entrusted to St. Unni.

How wide a field lay open to St. Unni's labours: Now, that we may at length come to St. Unni's apostolic labours, our eyes must first of all be cast upon his most vast double diocese. That of Hamburg consisted properly of Nordalbingia, which we are now accustomed to call Holstein. The adjoined diocese of Bremen took in Wigmodia and Lorgoe, two districts formed from ten smaller ones, or the duchy of Bremen and a great part of that of Oldenburg. There lay open besides to his apostolic labours, to the East, the Wends, namely the Wagrians, Obotrites, Kycini and Circipani as far as the river Panis or Pene (Peene), that is, the whole kingdom of Slavinia of that age; which was afterward divided into the dioceses of Lübeck, Ratzeburg and Schwerin, bordering the Barbarian or Baltic sea; the bishop of Verden, however, at times claiming for himself part of Ratzeburg and Schwerin. To the north there awaited his cares and solicitudes the whole of Denmark, Norway and Sweden with the adjacent islands. Into all these lands it was permitted to St. Unni, no less than to his predecessors, to send missionaries, to institute bishoprics and to claim them for his province, which as yet had no suffragans.

[52] what had already been piously established in the dioceses of Bremen and Hamburg; The diocese of Bremen was furnished here and there with churches; it had a good many presbyters and a people for by far the greatest part faithful. Things were in an altogether different condition in the diocese of Hamburg. For about the middle of the ninth century Hamburg had been burned by Norman pirates, and the whole diocese had only four baptismal churches. To the two dioceses belonged three monasteries; that of Ramelsloh, of men, in the diocese of Verden, to which that of Hamburg had been transferred when the town was destroyed; that of Bremen, likewise of men; and Birxinon or Bassum in the county of Hoya in the diocese of Bremen. Whether there was a fourth in the time of St. Ansgar I leave to others to inquire. To these St. Rimbert added another, namely in the solitude of Buggin or Bücken in the county of Hoya. Nor were hospitals lacking for receiving the poor and pilgrims, at least in the diocese of Bremen; which seem to have been very well established.

[53] what was laboured at in Slavinia, Denmark and Sweden; St. Ansgar had by no means neglected the Slavs; he bought boys of their race or freed them from captivity, who should thereafter spread the Catholic faith among their own people. St. Rimbert, for his part, had sent monks of Corvey into the furthest parts of Slavinia, and even to the island of Rügen, who had brought a great part of the inhabitants, or even all, over to the Christian religion. Both prelates, however, had laboured much more in Denmark, gathering everywhere a wonderful harvest, churches having been built at Schleswig and Ribe. In Sweden too, especially in that inner part of the kingdom which lies next to Lake Mellarus (Mälarsee), they and their helpers had sown the seeds of the faith, with fruit not to be regretted, and a church had risen at Birka. But although Ansgar and Rimbert had experienced grievous times, perhaps more grievous ones awaited their successors.

[54] [how much the dioceses of Hamburg and Bremen then suffered from the Slavs and the Hungarians;] Hostile before the others were the Magyars; a wandering tribe of Finns or Kalmucks, which had slipped out of Asia into the eastern regions of Europe, and were called Ungri, Hungari and Huns, because this nation was similar to that in savage manners. It is incredible to tell how much the whole of Germany suffered from them from the year 899 to 911. They burst into Saxony in the year 906, laying waste churches and scattering presbyters. They returned in the year 915; to whom others, so many scourges of divine vengeance, were added, as Adam of Bremen writes at the year 916 In Pertz, vol. VIII, page 303.: In those days a most savage persecution oppressed Saxony, when on this side the Danes and Slavs, on that side the Bohemians and Hungarians, tore the churches. Then the parish of Hammaburg was demolished by the Slavs and that of Bremen by the onslaught of the Hungarians. Whether the things which are referred by Adam of Bremen to the year 916 pertain to that time, or to the year 919, in which the Hungarians are read in the Annals of Corvey In Pertz, vol. III, page 4. to have again laid waste Saxony, I do not see clearly enough. Yet, whether they happened at the beginning of St. Unni's episcopate or a few years before, they must nevertheless be narrated in this place: In those days, he says Ibid. vol. VII, page 303., a great miracle is reported by posterity to have happened at Bremen. Namely, the Hungarians, having burned the churches, the priests

slaughtered before the altars, the clergy mixed with the common people either killed with impunity or led into captivity. Then too crosses were cut down by the pagans and held in mockery; the signs of which fury have lasted to our age. But God the jealous, whose passion was derided there, did not suffer the unbelievers to go away unpunished. For a sudden and wonderful storm arose and lifted the shingles * from the half-burned roofs of the churches, and, whirling them into the faces and mouths of the pagans as they sought the protection of flight, compelled them either to be thrown headlong into the river or to be shut into the hands of the citizens. This was the face of the churches of Bremen and Hamburg shortly before or shortly after St. Unni undertook to rule them.

[55] [In Slavinia the pious seeds were changed into superstition; St. Unni did not forget the Slavs.] The seeds of the faith sown through Slavinia, and especially through the island of Rügen, had been wholly crushed, and religion turned into superstition. For saint Vitus (these are the words of Helmold the presbyter, a most diligent writer of the twelfth century In Leibniz, Scriptt. rer. Brunswic. vol. II, page 543.), in whose commemoration the Corvey missionaries had founded an oratory among them, and whom we confess as a martyr and servant of Christ, they venerate as God, setting the creature before the creator. Nor is there any barbarism under heaven which more abhors Christians and priests; whom they had long since expelled. They glory only in the name of St. Vitus, to whom they have also dedicated a temple and an image with the most ample worship, attributing to him especially the primacy of deity. You would say that St. Unni laboured little or nothing on behalf of the Slavs, if you adhered too strictly to the words of Helmold Ibid. page cit., who writes that it is not without wonder that the most worthy prelates and evangelical preachers Anscar, Reimbert and Unni, sixth in order, whose great zeal shone in the conversion of the nations, so disregarded the care of the Slavs that they are not read to have produced any fruit among them, either by themselves or through ministers. That these words are not accurate enough as regards SS. Ansgar and Rimbert is sufficiently established from what we said at num. 24; unless Helmold spoke of stable and firm fruit. Nor does saint Unni seem to have wholly forgotten the Slavs; since, on the testimony of Adam of Bremen In Pertz, vol. VII, page 306., they relate that Adaldag, St. Unni's successor in the bishopric of Hamburg, also celebrated for doctrine and miracles, preached to the peoples of the Slavs at the time when our Unni was legate to the Scythians, or after the year 931. Nor was it possible for St. Unni to send missionaries thither long before, since no hope but of martyrdom shone; but the appearance and form of things was somewhat changed after, in the year from the incarnation of the Lord 929, the 2nd indiction, on the 2nd of the nones of September, a Friday, at sunrise, a mighty battle was fought beside the river which is called Alpia, against the Slavs; in which there were laid low of the pagans 120 thousand, and 800 captives; as is related in the Annals of Corvey Ibid. vol. III, page 4..

[56] The face of Denmark and Sweden was no less wretched. Denmark, The wretched face of Denmark and Sweden when St. Unni went there. which had once had a Christian prince, had long since been groaning under another yoke. Let it suffice for us to know this, to use the words of Adam Ibid. page VII, page 303., that all were still pagans, and that in so great a change of kingdoms or incursion of barbarians the Christianity in Denmark which was planted by saint Ansgar remained in some small measure and did not wholly fail. That through the victory of Henry the Fowler the door was opened there again to the gospel we know from the same Adam. But this matter lies wrapped in the greatest darkness: which we by no means trust will be dispelled by us; yet by the plan of the work we are compelled to attempt something.

* plates of split wood

§ VII. Of Wurm Hardecnut, king of Denmark, the extent of his kingdom, the victory of Henry the Fowler and the opportunity of announcing the gospel again among the Danes.

[The king of Denmark was Wurm, as is established from the stones; his wife Thyra; his son Harald Bluetooth,] Namely, that at that time a certain man, whose name among the Danes was Gorm, Wrm or Wurm, in Latin Vermis, was master of the kingdom of Denmark is an undoubted thing. His tomb and that of his wife Thyra still survive; with an inscription conceived in these words [In Olaus Worm, Danica monum. page 332 and 333; in Stephanius, Not. in lib. X Saxonis Grammatici, page 204.]: Haralter kunugr bad kaurva kubl dausi est Gurm fadur sin aug est Thiurui mudur sinasa. Haraltr kesor van Tanmaurk alla aug Nurvieg aug tini folk kristo; that is, King Harald ordered this tomb to be built in memory of Gorm his father and Thyra his mother. Harald the emperor acquired all Denmark and Norway and converted their inhabitants to the Christian faith. Another stone has In Stephanius, page 204.: Gurmur kunugr kubl dusi est Turui kunu sina Tanmarkar but; in Latin: King Gorm placed this tomb for Thyra his wife, the ornament of Denmark. Both inscriptions antiquaries rightly and deservedly hold to be not a recent invention but a genuine monument of antiquity Cf. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 84.: although it seemed otherwise to Gram in the Notes to Meursius and to Torfaeus in the Trifolium, who are for that reason rightly beaten by Langebek Scriptt. rer. Danic. vol. I, page 51, note g.. Certainly already in the year 1186, in which Sven Aggesen was writing, the first two (for the first inscription is carved on two stones were held to have been erected by Harald the son himself. For he says Hist. reg. Daniae, in Langebek, vol. I, page 51.: And when that illustrious queen (Thyra) with the king her husband had completed all the years of her life, Harald Bluetooth, the surviving son, who was also heir of the kingdom, after the rite of the gentiles, caused both parents to be buried in twin and equal mounds, as in illustrious mausoleums, beside the king's court at Jelling. Nor otherwise Saxo Grammaticus, a historian of the same twelfth century: After this, he says Book X, num. LIX, page 184., Thyra, the head of the Danish majesty, was taken away. Whose body Harald … committed to burial not far from his father's tomb… Where now too a sanctuary may be seen, set between the companion tombs of the two spouses. Worm and Stephanius have given a picture of the sanctuary of Jelling and the surrounding places. Wherefore, even if you will have it that those stones were not placed by Harald's order, it must nevertheless be confessed that they are most ancient, since already in the twelfth century it was so written of them.

[58] I would not trace the origin of Wurm and of the power of his ancestors. [The limits of the Danish kingdom which Wurm received by inheritance, northern, eastern,] The old genealogical tables agree that he sprang from the stock of Ragnar Lodbrok, whose sons above all inflicted so many and such great disasters in the ninth century on England and almost all the rest of Europe. Sigurd Ormioga, or Snake-eye, the son of Ragnar, is related to have obtained insular Gothland (the island of Zealand?) and all the smaller islands, Scania also and Halland Cf. Torfaeus, Series reg. Daniae, page 375 and 396.; and these things agree well enough with what Wulfstan in that very age told King Alfred the Great [Preface to the translation of Orosius by King Aelfred into the Saxon language, in Spelman, Aelfredi Magni Vita, app. VI, page 207; in Langebek, Scriptt. rer. Dan. vol. II, page 118.], namely that he set out from Haetho (Schleswig) and in the space of five days and nights arrived at Truso (Drausen, on the river Elbing, in Prussia Cf. Langebek, vol. II, page 120, note h.), the ship always under sail, and that on his right was always Wendland and on the left Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Scania; and that all these regions belong to Denmark; that further on, as one sails, on the left is Burgendaland (Bornholm), which had its own king; that after Burgendaland he came near to the land called Blekinge (at the etesian side of Scania) and to Meore (the east coast of Sweden) and Eowland (the adjacent island) and Gotland (the island) on the left; and that these lands belong to the Swedes: (and thas lande hyrath to Sueon;) so that Blekinge and Burgendaland were the eastern boundary of the Danish kingdom, and Småland and Västergötland the northern.

[59] southern and western: Other limits are assigned by Other, another explorer of the same age, whose narrative King Alfred also took down with his pen. For that Other, going from Halogaland, or the north of Norway, to Schleswig, or Haethum, after he had come near Sciringes-heal in Vestfold [Cf. Ynglinga Saga, chap. 50, in Snorri Sturluson, Peringskiöld ed., vol. I, page 56; cf., however, Langebek, vol. II, page 113, note z.] (which I see placed by some Cf. Von Spruner, Atlas, table 50. to the west of the bay of Christiania), had on the left Iraland (Inland or Ionland?) and the surrounding islands, on the right northern Jutland; which he calls Gotland, the Danes and old Icelanders Reidgotaland [Cf. Torfaeus, Series regum Daniae, page 86 and following. Langebek, vol. II, page 117, note n; Reuterdahl, Ansgarius, page 36, Berlin, 1837.]; further down finally Silland, or southern Jutland: He said moreover, says King Alfred [In Spelman, Vita Aelfredi Magni, page 207; in Langebek, vol. II, page 115 and following.], that from Sciringes-heal he arrived after a voyage of five days at the port which they call Haethe; which is situated among the Wends, Saxons and Angles: and is of the dominion of the Danes: (and hyrth hit on Dene). While sailing thither from Sciringes-heal he had on the left Denmark (Halland and Scania), and on the right, for a course of three days, the Ocean, and two days before he reached Haethe he had on the right Gotland (northern Jutland) and Silland (southern Jutland) and not a few islands (Samsø, Fyn, Tåsinge, Ærø etc.). These regions the Angles inhabited before they came hither (into Britain). And during the same two days there were on his left those islands which belong to Denmark; so that the part of the sea which is the Kattegat, and the strait which is customarily called the Great Belt, and also the strait which is between the islands of Tåsinge and Langeland, were the southern boundary of the Danish kingdom; and the Holstein and Mecklenburg sea the southern boundary; and so present-day Denmark lay outside the Danish kingdom as it was constituted in the latter part of the ninth century. To whom the islands of Västergötland belonged Other omits; not because there was nothing there of the Danish dominion (for Danholm still retains the name of its former condition), but rather because part of them, as Erik Gustaf Geijer, a more recent historian of Sweden, relates

Hist. de Suède, translated by de Lundblad, vol. I, page 49, Brussels, 1845., belonged to Norway, another part to Sweden and lastly a third part to Denmark; nay, Danholm itself was at one time so divided into three parts [Cf. Limites inter Daniam et Sueciam, in Olaus Worm, Regum Daniae series duplex, page 39. Cf. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 140.].

[60] The warlike Wurm enlarges it with both Jutlands and some islands. That Danish kingdom, such as we have described, fell to Warm; who, by no means content with his ancestral dominion, set out with an army into that part of Denmark which was then called Reidgotaland, but is now named Jutland, against a certain king called Gnupa; whom after some battles he killed, and reduced his kingdom into his own power. Then he undertook an expedition against a certain king by name Silfraskalli; and fought with him several times, always the victor; and at length killed that king. Afterward, proceeding into the interior of Jutland, he conquered all the kings as far as Schleswig and subjected to himself a great part of Wendland. Whether from this arose the rights which the kings of Denmark formerly claimed over the duchy of Mecklenburg Cf. Jo. Beehr. Rer. Meelenb. book VIII chap. 5, col. 1535. it is not the place here to inquire. He waged many battles against the Saxons and became a most powerful king. So says the Icelandic biographer of Olaf Tryggvason, cited by Torfaeus Series regum Daniae, page 444 and 445.; whose reading is much better than that published by Peringskiöld Heims Kringla. page 224.. Hence in the Knytlinga Saga, chap. 32, which Dahlmann, who has deserved excellently of the history of Denmark, brings forward on this matter Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 67, Wurm is said to have obtained many kingdoms; hence that fable which Saxo Grammaticus narrates Book IX, chap. 58. page 179., that Thyra was unwilling to marry him until she had received Denmark (he means both Jutlands) under the name of dowry; hence another fable, which the history of Harald Hårfagre, or Fairhair, king of Norway, presents, that Gida, daughter of Eric, prince of Hordaland, answered Harald's envoys that marriage with him would not please her until he held Norway in full power; such dominion indeed as Wurm, king of Denmark, and Eric of the Uppsalans possessed: although that marriage, as Dahlmann judges Histor. Forschungen, vol. I, page 350., seems to have been celebrated before Wurm's victories: but our argument is drawn from the report which gave some sort of origin to these words.

[61] The German writers relate that Wurm himself Further, that ardour for seizing, or rather plundering, regions at length stirred the victorious arms of Henry the Fowler against Worm. We have as witness Widukind of Corvey, a contemporary writer: But when Henry, he says Book I, chap. 40. in Pertz, vol. III, page 435., had subjected all the nations round about, he went with an army against the Danes, who were attacking the Frisians with naval brigandage, and conquered them; and making them tributaries, he caused their king, by name Chnuba, to receive baptism. This Chnuba, by others Knut, Cnuto or Hardeknut, we shall show below to be the same as Wurm. Not otherwise Thietmar of Merseburg, a nearly contemporary chronicler: Moreover, he says Book I. chap. 9, in Pertz, vol. III, page 739., discoursing of Henry, he made the Northmen and Danes obedient to him, and, having recalled them from their former error, taught them with their king Cnuto to bear the yoke of Christ. The Annalist of Reichenau In Pertz, vol. I, page 69. and after him the Continuator of Regino Ibid. page 617., no differently from Widukind, both contemporaries: King Henry, they say, made the king of the Abodrites and the king of the Danes Christians; which words the Saxon Chronographer, a writer of the twelfth century, inserted into his annals, adding In Leibniz. Access. hist. vol. I, page 153.: For having entered Denmark with an army, he conquered the king by name Wrm. Many others copied these, the chief of whom may be learned from Struve Corpus, Hist. German. page 227 and 228..

[62] although several resist, These things did not please all: some held that Henry never penetrated into Denmark with an army, much less made its inhabitants tributary; that only some robbers were conquered by him while they were ravaging Frisia under the leadership of Knut Dana-ast, Wurm's elder son: others grant that the Danes were made tributary, not because King Wurm himself had been conquered, but because, terrified by the disaster inflicted on his son in Frisia, he had consented to most grievous conditions of peace: which explanation Münter praises Kirchen Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 349.: others, by which name I understand not only the more recent but also the more ancient historians and chroniclers, both northern and German, with Adam of Bremen as leader, so far from wishing that Wurm ever pledged his faith to Christ, hold on the contrary that he was a most bitter enemy: others finally, who grant that Henry conquered the Danes in their native land, inquire much about what he then did. And these things are now to be called to the balance.

[63] [was conquered by Henry the Fowler. Wurm's surname Hardecnut, or Cnut, taken for his name.] First of all I would have these words of Adam noticed: Among the Danes at that time Hardecnuth Wrm reigned, a most cruel worm, I say: from which it is established that at the end of the eleventh century Wurm was held by the Danes (for Adam himself relates that he received all these things from a Danish bishop) to have two names; so that Wurm was the name, as we have from the sepulchral stone and from the Icelandic and other books, and Hardecnuth the cognomen or surname; whether this was a patronymic (namely, most Danish and Icelandic writings call his father Hardecnuth), or a trifling or proper surname, such as clung to most northern heroes. Further, it has happened more than once that foreign nations have fallen into error through that double appellation, taking the surname or cognomen for the name: of which thing the most manifest example is Ragnar Lodbrok, or Hairy-breeches, so called because he wore hairy (lode) breeches (brog) Cf. Spelman, Vita Aelfredi Magni, page 13., or of goatskin, after the custom of the northern seamen [Cf. Augustin Thierry, Hist. de la conquête d'Angleterre, vol. I, page 98, Brussels edition.]; but that Ragnar is not called by his own name by foreigners; but the surname alone is in use everywhere. Asser, an English writer of the tenth century, calls him Lodebroch Annal. rer. Gest. Aelfredi at the year 878, Wise ed., page 33.; John Brompton Lothebroch Chronic. page 804.; Adam of Bremen Lodparch Book I, num. 39, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 298.; William of Jumièges Lothroc Book I, chap. 5, in Duchesne, Scriptt. rer. Normann. page 218., and the Norman poets of the twelfth century Benoît Chronique des ducs de Normandie, vol. I, page 26, 27 and 198, Paris, 1836. and Wace Roman de Rou, vol. I, page 11. Lotroc; so that it is doubtful whether the name of Ragnar became known among those nations which he afflicted with so many disasters Cf. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 63.. Nay more, in Icelandic writings he is sometimes indicated by his surname alone Florus Danicus, page 191.. Who, then, would wonder that Wurm's surname, namely Hardecnut, Cnut or Chnupa, was better known to the Germans? nay, that to Adam, Vitus Bering Corpus Hist. German. page 228. and Struve Cf. Snorri Sturluson, Heims Kringla, vol. I, page 223, Peringskiöld ed. Hardecnut seemed the name and Wurm the surname?

[64] It is not credible that the Germans did not know the king of Denmark, I would have it noticed, secondly, that it is altogether impossible that the Germans confused the king's son with the king himself, since with the latter himself they made a pact concerning the gravest matters, namely the annual tribute, the boundaries and the freedom of the Christian faith. All these things indeed some Danish historians have been pleased to deny: whom they had made tributary but what will remain of historical credit if one may set aside Widukind, the Annalist of Reichenau and the Continuator of Regino, contemporary writers, and Thietmar of Merseburg, a nearly contemporary historian, relating these things openly enough, as we have seen? if Liutprand, likewise contemporary, is of no worth, using indeed these words Antapodosis, book III, chap. 5, num. 21, in Pertz, vol. III, page 306.: He too (Henry the Fowler) first subjugated the Danes and compelled them to serve him; and through this made his name celebrated among many nations *; and further on, speaking of Hugh, king of Italy, or count of Arles: No less, he says Book III, chap. 13, num. 47, page 314., had he also made Henry, whom we mentioned above, a most valiant king, his friend by many gifts conferred; whose name was then most famous among the Italians from this, that he alone conquered the Danes, subject to no one before, and made them tributaries. What of the fact that the most ancient Danish writers themselves, although they were scarcely accustomed to remember the sad fortunes of their nation, did not entirely pass over this disaster? For Sven, son of Aggo, a writer of the twelfth century, puts in the mouth of Thyra, Wurm's wife, these words to the German envoys Hist. reg. Daniae, in Langebek, vol. I, page 50 and 51.: To conclude in brief speech, I will shortly with strong right hand free the Danes FROM THE YOKE OF TRIBUTARY SERVITUDE, being about to show you no reverence of subjection at all. In actual truth Sven a little above Ibid. page 48. derives the origin of this subjection from this, that the emperor Otto had made Dacia tributary to himself; but it has long been observed that the name of Otto, who reigned after Wurm's death and who in the times of Harald Bluetooth, Wurm's successor and son, conquered the Danes, has been put in place of Henry Cf. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dännemark, vol, I, page 70.. Of religion we shall presently hear Thietmar; of the boundaries we shall speak below.

[65] with the whole people, even of the islands. Let it be noticed in the third place that these things pertain to the whole of Denmark, and by no means to some corner of Jutland which Cnut Dana-ast had received from his maternal grandfather. Certainly Wurm's sons are read in Saxo Grammaticus Hist. Danic. book IX, chap. 58, page 180. to have intruded themselves into their grandfather's inheritance; but he, while he narrates it, does not lay down that Klakk-Harald, jarl of Jutland, was Thyra's father; which genealogy pleased the Icelanders more Cf. Snorri Sturluson, vol. I, page 224, Peringskiöld ed.; but Ethelred, king of England: and so he expressly affirms that this inheritance was situated in the northern parts of England: but no one, so far as I know, who made Klakk-Harald Wurm's father-in-law, has committed to writing that Cnut Dana-ast and Harald Bluetooth succeeded him. For the rest, that the talk cannot be of some corner but of the whole of Denmark, even from this alone

it is plain, that Thietmar of Merseburg, after he had recorded Henry's Danish victory, speaks immediately of the human sacrifices customary at Lederum (Leyre) near Roskilde in Zealand, which was then a royal city, and concludes this discourse of his with these words In Pertz, vol. III, page 740.: How well our king did, who forbade them so execrable a rite: so that even the most remote Danes submitted to Henry's laws when he conquered their king!

[66] The occasion of this war seems to have been the depredations made in Frisia. In the fourth place it must be considered that Henry's victory was altogether singular, since, as we have received from Liutprand's mouth, his name was then most famous among the Italians because he ALONE CONQUERED the Danes, subject to no one before, and made them tributaries; so that it seems impossible to admit that only a band of robbers, however great it may have been, was destroyed in Frisia. For very often before Henry's age whole columns of this kind had been conquered; over which even royal sons presided. Wherefore, if you suppose that the victory was won in Frisia, you should at least lay down with the Frisian chronicler [Eggerics Beninga, Hist. van Oostfriesland, num. 66, in Matthaeus, Vett. analecta, vol. IV, page 90 and 91.] that the king himself was captured; that Denmark itself was subjected and illumined with the light of the gospel; and that the king was not released from his chains before he promised that he would commit himself with docile mind to the discipline of Christ. But much more safely will credit be given to Adam Book I, chap. 48, num. 59, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 304., who narrates that Henry entered Denmark and terrified Wurm at the first onset; which narrative Albert of Stade, Helmold and others follow In Struve, page 228.; nay, even Dahlmann himself Geschichte von Dännemark, vol, I, page 71.: so that the depredation of the Danes in Frisia gave Henry the cause for invading Denmark.

[67] Hardecnut, Cnut and Chnub the same surname. Wherefore, if anyone considers with himself that Wurm's surname was Hardecnut; that it is not singular for Danish kings to be indicated by foreign writers by their surname rather than by their name; that a disaster was inflicted by Henry on the whole Danish nation; that the Germans made a pact with their king about tribute and other most grave matters; and that these things are narrated by contemporary German writers, and those excellent historians: how, if anyone considers these things with himself, will he not lay down that Wurm himself was conquered, that he passed over to the Christian religion, and that he is the Chnuba or Cnuto of whom Widukind and Thietmar speak? To weaken these things, they say that the name Chnuba is not Cnuto, much less Hardecnut: but nothing is more manifest than that the one whom Widukind calls Chnuba is the same as the Cnuto who is read in Thietmar; then the same meaning is in both words, since Chnub and Cnut, in German Knopf and Knott, equally signify a knot; and lastly Adam himself somewhere Book I, chap. 40, num. 50, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 301. names, from the mouth of King Sven, Chnob and Gurd, whose vulgar names are Knut and Giurd Cf. Torfaeus, Series reg. Daniae, page 430 and 436.. Nor is greater difficulty placed in the difference that falls between Hardecnut and Cnut: for the old Danes themselves [Cf. Saxo Grammaticus, book IX, chap. 54, page 178; Sven Aggesen, chap. 2, in Langebek, vol. I, page 48, etc.] call simply Cnut or Canute the one who to others [Langfedgatal, in Langebek, vol. I, page 6; Series triplex reg. septentr. ibid. page 11, etc.] is Hardecnut.

[68] Wurm was converted to the faith. They object besides that Adam Book I, chap. 47 num. 61, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 304. is witness that St. Unni could not bend the most cruel Worm, on account of his innate savagery, to the religion of the Christians: but stronger is the authority of the Annalist of Reichenau, the Continuator of Regino, Widukind and others affirming that the king of the Danes was converted to the faith, and, following the example of the Saxon Chronographer, it is better to pledge credit to them than to Adam.

[69] Henry conquered the Danes in the year 831. In what year these things were done the account of both ancients and moderns varies. Albert of Stade In Kulpis, vol. III, page 221 and 222. places them at the year 921; Eggeric Beninga Hist. van Oostfriesland, in Matthaeus, vol. IV, page 90., or his interpolator, at 923; Marianus Scotus In Pertz, vol. VI, page 554. at 930; very many at 931; the Annals of Corvey Ibid. vol. III, page 4. at 944; Widukind Ibid. page 435. after all the nations round about had been subjected; by which note Sigebert of Gembloux Ibid. vol. VI, page 347. judged the year 935 to be designated; but Dahlmann Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 69. at the year 934: in which he supposes Henry actually conquered the Danes, led by the authority of the Annals of Corvey. Struve Corpus Hist. Germ. page 227., however, assents to the Saxon Annalist In Pertz, vol. VI, page 596 and 597., who narrates that the Danes were overcome by Henry's arms and recalled from their former error in the year 926, but that their king came to the Christian faith in the year 931. But neither Dahlmann's nor Struve's opinion pleases; not the former's, since the Annals of Corvey are not contemporary, and Widukind noted Henry's victory over the Danes without any indication of time, outside the series of events, because perhaps the year was not established for him; not Struve's, since the Saxon Annalist seems to have referred, at pleasure or by conjecture, Thietmar's words to one year and those of Adam of Bremen to another. It is better, therefore, to follow the contemporary Annals of Reichenau Ibid. vol. I, page 69., in which at the year 931 we read: King Henry made the kings of the Abodrites and of the Northmen Christians, and set out into Gaul (nay, into Francia Cf. Continuator of Regino, in Pertz, vol. I, page 617., and indeed Eastern Francia, to Eberhard, brother of Conrad I). And these Annals were followed first of all by the Continuator of Regino Ibid. loc. cit., himself contemporary, and after him by very many others, whom Struve reckons up Corp. Hist. Germ. page 227 and 228.. And certainly, since St. Unni died in the year 936, who would understand that within one year he restored the Christian religion in Denmark, crossed over into Sweden, and also spent some labour at Birka? And yet to this are they reduced who place Henry's victory in the year 934, and much more those who place it in 935!

[70] Controversies about the margrave, But since it had long been understood that nothing firm and sacred could be expected from the faith of the barbarians unless they were brought over to the Christian religion and held in check by a military garrison, Henry took care that both matters should be provided for as soon as possible. Henry the victor, says Adam Book I, chap. 46, num. 58, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 304., setting the boundaries of the kingdom at Sliaswich, which is now called Heidiba, there both established a margrave and ordered a colony of Saxons to dwell. To which pertains what the same historian relates further on: With (Canute the Great), he says Book II, chap. 93, num. 54, page 325., king of the Danes or the English, through the mediation of the archbishop (of Hamburg, Unwan), he (the emperor Conrad) made peace. Whose daughter (Cunigunde) also the emperor asking as wife for his son (Henry), he gave him the city of Sliaswig with the march which is beyond the Egdora, in a treaty of friendship; and from that time it belonged to the kings of Denmark: which things were done in the year 1027 or 1035 Cf. Dahlmann, vol. I, page 71 and 108.. And elsewhere the same Adam Book IV, chap. 221, num. 13, page 373.: The first at the mouth of the aforesaid bay (the Kattegat) dwell on the southern bank toward us the Danes, whom they call Juddas, as far as the lake Slia. From which the borders of the parish of Hammaburg begin.

[71] the boundaries and the colony of Saxons. On these words of Adam a great many commentaries have been written. Those who denied Henry's victory or made it almost empty denied all these things outright. But, these being dismissed, Dahlmann supposes Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 70. that Henry, who had also instituted a military garrison under the name of a march on the borders of the Slavs and the Hungarians, in fact restored a march which had perhaps been ordained by Charlemagne; and certainly, as they would have it, it existed in the year 828: that this was situated between the Slia and the Egdora, yet so that the Danish kingdom was not diminished, and that march did not include Schleswig and perhaps the district of Swansen. Others suppose that the site of Schleswig changed; and that this city, which is now beyond the Slia, was formerly on this side; and that the village of Haddeby, situated on this side of the Slia, since it is manifestly the old Hetheby, is a perpetual indication of this. They will have it also that no colony of Saxons was brought to Schleswig by Henry, and that this opinion arose from the fact that in Adam's time many Saxons lived in this city; but that they drew their origin from former merchants. For my part I fear that in these things enough account is not taken of the things which, on the testimony of Adam himself Book II, chap. 4, num. 3, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 306., happened a few years after the death of Henry the Fowler, namely that the Danes, intending to make war, slaughtered Otto's envoys with the margrave at Heidiba, extinguishing utterly the whole colony of Saxons; that to avenge this the king at once invaded Denmark with an army and, having crossed the boundaries of the Danes, formerly set at Sliaswig, laid waste with fire and sword the whole region as far as the furthest sea, which divides the Northmen from the Danes and to this present day is called Ottinsund from the king's victory. But it concerns us less to inquire into these things, since they make little or nothing for St. Unni's labours, whatever the condition of this corner may finally have been: for the rest, they are as obscure as possible.

* nationibus

§ VIII. On St. Unni's labours in Denmark and Sweden; on the site of Birka, where he died; the Life to be published; the pious sentiments of the Danes and Swedes toward their apostles.

[St. Unni's labours in Jutland; he converts the petty king Frotho and restores some churches;] Adam touches rather than explains what St. Unni accomplished among the Danes; namely that he gathered a multitude of believers, ordained priests for the individual churches, and gained by his preaching Harold, the king's son; to whom, although not yet baptized, he commended the new flock when he went away to the islands and to Sweden. Besides, we have laid down above that King Wurm himself, whose surname was Cnut or Hardecnut, was converted to the faith by him, although Adam denies it. Moreover, in the Old Icelandic Fragment, which is read separately In Langebek, vol. II, page 29. and in the History of Olaf Tryggvason in Snorri Sturluson [Peringskiöld ed., page 221; in Torfaeus, Series regum Daniae, page 404 and following.], we have still other things:

Then nine hundred years had passed since the birth of Christ. And after seventeen years (in the year 918) Huno was consecrated bishop at Bremen in Saxony. Twelve years after (in the year 931) Henry, who was the first emperor of that name, moved into Denmark, led the Danes to Christ both by blandishments and by threats, and did not desist until they promised to receive the true faith. Afterward Bishop Huno went to King Frotho, who then reigned in Jutland, and baptized him and the people. Then the temples which had been destroyed were rebuilt at Heidaby and at Ribe. Also at that time a temple was built at Aarhus. (He means the church of the Holy Trinity at Liefberg near Aarhus [Cf. Pontoppidan, Annal. page 56, and Theatrum Daniae, vol. I, page 346; Huitfeld, Chronic. Aarhus. page 98; Suhm, Critisk. Hist. vol. III, page 810 and 816; Münter, Kirchengeschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 351.]; which others suppose was built in the time of St. Poppo after St. Unni's death [Andr. Vellejus in a note to Adam of Bremen, book II, chap. 56; Pontoppid. Theatr. page 364.]: a matter obscure enough.) After which (and so after St. Unni's death) King Frotho, having sent men to Rome, at the exhortation of Pope Agapetus caused three bishops to be inaugurated in Jutland. Heredus was consecrated for Heidaby, Lifdag for Ribe and Rimbrand for Aarhus. This was done in the nine hundred and forty-eighth year of the Lord's incarnation, the twelfth year of the reign of Otto the Great.

[73] A difficulty arising from the abolition of the petty kings in Jutland. In actual truth that Frotho, reigning in Jutland, causes difficulty: to remove which Langebek intimates Vol. II, page 49, note o. that in his place Wurm and his son Harald are to be understood; others judge that he was a vicar king and had already been imbued with the elements of the faith in England Suhm, Critisk Hist. af Dänn. vol. III, page 816.; others that he was a jarl or count of Jutland [Cf. Münter, Kirchengeschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 351; Gebhardi, Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 405.]; and others finally suppose that this jarl, with the other things of Jutland, should rather be deleted Dahlmann, vol. I, page 78, note 2.. For my part I do not see how it can be denied that that Fragment has force and historical authority; since Saxo Grammaticus too Book IX, chap. 40, page 178., although he does not agree on all the circumstances, mentions the same Frotho and also the embassy which he sent to Pope Agapetus. It must certainly be granted that he was not king of Jutland, since most certainly it was at that time subject to Wurm and then to Harald Bluetooth his son. But what prevents him from having been a vicar king, count or jarl? They say indeed that the power of the jarls was taken away by Wurm, so that the whole government might be in his own hands with no other intermediaries: which opinion they establish by those passages which we indicated above at num. 60. But these things do not seem to be pressed so far; and certainly that kind of conclusion yields to open testimonies.

[74] St. Unni travels through the islands and Scania: St. Unni, on Adam's authority, after he had sown the Gospel through Denmark and entrusted this sacred crop to approved presbyters, supported by the help of Harald, king or king's son (for it is not established at what time he succeeded his father), and by an envoy or a retinue of chief men, penetrated all the islands of the Danes, evangelizing the word of God to the gentiles, and strengthening in Christ the faithful whom he found there held captive and reduced to slavery by Danish robbers. Münter asserts Kirchengeschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 351 and 352. that St. Unni preached to the gentiles secretly and with the greatest prudence; especially in Zealand, where the sacrifices of Leyre were to be abolished by the conditions agreed with Henry the Fowler, and in Fionia, or the island of Fyn, once most celebrated for the cult of a certain goddess. Who would doubt that the man, full of the spirit of God, acted prudently? But that he preached secretly is not credible, since a royal retinue was with him. No one before St. Unni had propagated the faith in these islands, since Roric, on whose favour and help St. Ansgar relied, had no dominion over the eastern kingdom of Denmark such as we described above Cf. Dahlmann, vol. I, page 66 and 67.: so that, by God's providence, the fierce victories of Wurm, by which he joined the western kingdom of Denmark to the eastern, availed no less for extending the dominion of the church than the fortunate arms of Henry the Fowler. Under the name of islands Adam seems to understand Scania also, whether he wrote Book IV, chap. 214, Mader ed., page 142.: Scania is an island, almost the last part of Denmark, girt on all sides by the sea except one arm of land which on the east, continuous, separates Sweden from Denmark; or Pertz ed., vol. VII, page 370.: Scania is the last part of Denmark, almost an island, etc. For, leaving aside the controversy whether Adam is accustomed to count Scania among the islands of Denmark Cf. Dahlmann, vol. I, page 67., it is sufficiently evident from the context that St. Unni travelled through the islands and peninsulas, since before his departure into Sweden he illumined the kingdom of Denmark with the light of the gospel.

[75] he makes for Sweden by sea, He set out into Sweden not by a land journey but by sea, since in that tract of land by which Scania is divided from Sweden there are deep forests and most rugged mountains, says Adam Book IV, chap. 214, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 370., through which the journey from Scania into Gothland must necessarily be made, so that you may doubt whether it is easier to avoid the danger of land by the hazard of the sea, or to prefer the former to the latter. The sea journey, besides, was made in a much shorter space of time: for, on the testimony of Adam Ibid. chap. 237, page 380., the journey is such that, sailing from Danish Scania through the sea, on the fifth day you arrive at Sigtuna or Birka (for they are near together); whither St. Unni had to go; but if you go by land from Scania through the peoples of the Goths and the city of Skara, Telje and Birka, you will arrive at Sigtuna after a full month.

[76] opened again, for unknown reasons, to the gospel The writers also ask what paved the way for him into Sweden, since this was not subject to the same king as Denmark. Münter judges Kirchengeschichte von Dännemark, vol I, page 352. that the king of Sweden showed himself compliant in order to please the Germans, between whom and the Swedes there was some commerce. A probable conjecture: to which, however, if anyone should prefer another, I will not object; namely that hindrances to evangelical preaching had been put forward much less by the Swedes themselves than by the Danish robbers; so that, as soon as these had been checked, the greatest dangers seemed removed; and so that the opportunity which St. Unni seized is to be traced not from political reasons of the Swedes, but from the disaster of the Danes and their happy conversion to better things. But it is perhaps better to abstain from inquiring into these things.

[77] Birka, where St. Unni landed, When St. Unni came into Sweden he landed at Birka; which was at that time a celebrated emporium and the principal city of the kingdom. There St. Ansgar too had landed: on the occasion of whom our Henschenius inquired into some things about this town Acta SS. vol. I of February, page 401., and thought that Birka was situated on that island of Lake Mälar which is still called Biorca, or in its neighbourhood toward Sigtuna. After others Langebek spoke much more copiously on the same subject Scriptt. rer. Danic. vol. I, page 444., judging that Birka was either the ancient Sigtuna itself (for the ancients seem to have distinguished two), or the port or castle of ancient Sigtuna; and that this ancient Sigtuna was situated on the island of Biorka; and indeed very many testify that some ruins, traces of this deserted city, have been discovered, and have even published pictures of them. But to others these ruins seemed too few to be reckoned the indications of a once most flourishing town [Cf. Reuterdahl, Ansgarius oder der Anfangspunkt des Christenthums in Schweden, trans. by Mayerhoff, page 207.]. Wherefore, delaying not at all on these things, Geijer Hist. de Suède, vol. I, page 62 and following, Brussels ed. lays down that Birka is indeed the ancient Sigtuna, but that it did not exist on the island of Biorca, but right next to the present Sigtuna: for they are near together, he says with Adam In Pertz, vol. VII, page 381., Birka and Sigtuna: so that Geijer's opinion is that Birka and Sigtuna were no more distant from each other than ancient and modern Rome.

[78] it does not seem to have adjoined Sigtuna, But I fear that he presses too hard these words of Adam: For they are near together, especially if the whole passage is read which we recited a little above. For Adam, describing the land journey from Scania to Sigtuna, designates three stations, Skara (Skara), Telje (Telje) and Birka. Now just as no one would rightly say that one goes from Terracina to Rome through Velletri, Albano and the Caelian Hill, so Adam would not rightly have said that one goes from Scania to Sigtuna through Skara, Telje and Birka, unless Birka had been some distance from Sigtuna. A similar argument lies in scholium 138 to book IV, or the description of the islands of the North, where Adam, speaking of the journey of Adalward, bishop of Sigtuna: Then also, he says Ibid. page cit., on the occasion of his journey he TURNED ASIDE to Birka, which has now been reduced to a wilderness, so that the traces of the city scarcely appear; wherefore not even the tomb of saint Unni the archbishop could be found: for who would bear that Adalward turned aside from Sigtuna to Birka on the occasion of his journey, if the one city adjoined the other? Wherefore, when Adam wrote that they are near together, he meant nothing else than that the sea journey to the one was not longer than to the other. I would not dare, therefore, to adhere to Geijer; much less to Spruner, who in map XLIX of his historical Atlas placed Birka to the north of Sigtuna, although Adam most openly opposes it, describing the land journey from Scania.

[79] but situated on an island of Lake Mälar. The opinion of Henschenius, Langebek and others, who placed Birka on the island of Biorca, therefore pleases more, not only because its site agrees sufficiently with Adam's words, because the names are similar, and because some ruins were found there (although not many were to be expected, since formerly the Swedes, as Geijer himself rightly relates Hist. de Suède, vol. I, page 91., built their structures of wood), but also because the tradition of the Swedes seems so to hold. For in the Old prose Chronicle of Sweden, written in the native tongue, several passages from Adam are inserted in which Birka is treated, and everywhere in its place is read Then Gamble Suenske Crónica, in Fant, Scriptt. rer. Suecic. page 245. Biorkööl; which only

means the same as the island of Birka. Thither, accordingly, Messenius, treating of the three old emporia of Sweden, transferred these words from the Chronicle of the Norwegians Ibid. page 242.: Birka han laa vppa ena öö in Mælar, som hether Birköö, that is: Birka was situated on an island of Lake Mälar which is called Birköö. Similarly In Fant, page 256, col. 2. in the Lesser Rhymed Swedish Chronicle Birka is called Biörkö; which is still the name of this island. Likewise in the Swedish Breviary, perhaps that of Skara, printed at Nuremberg in the year 1498, Birka is called now Birchoe, now Byrkö In Langebek, vol. II, page 634 and 636.. Nor otherwise in the sixteenth century Olaus Petri, who here and there in his Swedish Chronicles Svenska Chrónica, in Fant, page 231. calls Birka Biörcköö or Byrcköö. Nay more, the common name of the old Swedish law supports it, which in the time of Olaus Petri was often called Byrcköö rätt, or the Law of the island of Birka, as the same man is witness Ibid. page 233.: so that he would err who should credit to the bare divinations of archaeologists the opinion by which Birka and, if you please [Cf. Langebek, vol. I, page 444 and following; Geijer, Hist. de Suède, vol. I, page 62 and following; Reuterdahl, Ansgarius, page 205 and following, etc.], old Sigtuna is placed on the island of Biorca.

[80] St. Unni seems to have preached a year and a half in Sweden. How long St. Unni preached the gospel at Birka and round about is not wholly uncertain, since it is fairly established in what year he arrived there. Namely, Adam writes Book I, chap. 47, num. 62, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 304. that for 70 years after the death of saint Ansgar no one of the teachers dared to reach Birka, except only, as we read, Rimbert. But since, as we showed above at num. 26, St. Ansgar died at the beginning of the month of February of the year 865, it follows from this that St. Unni landed in Sweden in the year 935; so that within a year he had completed the ministry of his legation, when at length, as Adam says Book I, chap. 49, num. 64., he was arranging to return, but, seized with sickness at Birka, laid down there the tabernacle of his weary body, about the middle of the month of September of the year 936. I agree, therefore, entirely with Olaus Rosenius, who in the Treatise of public law on the Roman-Catholic bishops of the Swedish kingdom Page 8. (whom in the same place he very often, God spare him! calls idolaters and loads with other insults) writes that St. Unni for a year and a half faithfully taught a people that had all but wholly forgotten Christ: but I wholly disagree with him where he relates in the same place that St. Unni, having resigned the archiepiscopal office, went on into Sweden; since the preaching of the faith among the Swedes was part of the office of the archbishops of Hamburg. But this in haste. Nor need more be said about another error of some Swedes, who confuse St. Unno, bishop of Skara, who is read in the Rhymed Swedish Chronicle of Skara [Biscop. Brynolphs Rimchrönica, in Eric. Benzelius, Monum. vet. eccl. Suegothic. page 72.] to have brought the gospel there from England after St. Sigfrid, with St. Unni, or Unno, of Hamburg: for, as Eric Benzelius rightly observes Ibid. page 215 at the end of corollary III., the circumstances of time and place clearly define them as different.

[81] Writings on St. Unni. But since, as we said in §1, no hope shines of obtaining anywhere the Life of St. Unni written by Sigebert of Corvey, the companion of his labours and journey, we now give a Life excerpted from book I of the Deeds of the pontiffs of the church of Hamburg, which Adam, canon and master of the schools of Bremen, compiled about the year 1075. We shall use Lappenberg's most complete edition In Pertz., vol. VII, page 303 and following.. Very many others have written of St. Unni; but Adam was the sole source for almost all. It will be helpful to indicate in a few words the other chief authors. First in order is Helmold, presbyter of Bosau in the diocese of Lübeck, who, what St. Gregory of Tours did for the Franks, the Ven. Bede for the English and Saxons, and Adam of Bremen for the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, himself did for the Slavs, having completed in the year 1168 Cf. Pagi, Critica at the year 1168, num. 22. the Chronicles of the Slavs, or the History of the conversion of the Slavs. Several have published his work; we have used Leibniz's edition above. He treats of St. Unni in book I, chapters 6 and 8 Scriptt. Brunswic. vol. II, num. 8, page 543, 544, 545.. Albert of Stade is a whole century later, and his Chronicle too has come to light through the care of several. In the edition of Kulpis or of Schilter (the latter did nothing else than add some new pages in the year 1702 to two volumes printed in the year 1685) St. Unni is spoken of at the years 915, 921 and 936 [Scriptt. rer. German. a Carolo M. ad Fredericum III, vol. II, page 208, 211, 212, 213.]. Third, about the middle of the fifteenth century, Heinrich Wolter, canon of St. Ansgar's at Bremen, wrote a Bremen Chronicle, in which he comprised in a few words what Adam had left about St. Unni; Meibom published it Rerum German. vol. II, page 8.. Then came another Albert, far better than the former, namely Krantz, who died in the year 1517. He endowed with excellent order and the best Latinity what he had found in Adam about St. Unni, and inserted it in book III, chapters V and VI, of his Metropolis Metropolis, sive Hist. eccles. Saxoniae, page 154 and following, Cologne, 1574.. A briefer eulogy we owe to Johann Otto of Lüneburg, bound up with the Catalogue of the bishops and archbishops of Bremen; which, carried down to the year 1580, Mencke first published Scriptt. rer. Germ. vol. III, col. 779.. Baronius too [Annal. eccles. at the year 917, num. 1 and following; 930, num. 1; 932, num. II; 936, num. VIII.], adhering to Adam's footsteps, did not omit the praises of St. Unni. Messenius, whose ninth volume of Scondia illustrata comprises the History of the Saints and prelates, wished the Life of St. Unni, or Bl. Unno, to be inserted in it as well Scondiae illust. vol. IX, chap. 14, page 8 and 9.. Nor otherwise Vastovius Vitis Aquilonaris, page 16 and following, Benzelius ed. in his most celebrated work on the northern Saints.

[82] [The pious sentiments of the Protestants toward their apostles, especially St. Ansgar.] But we must stop here; for the merits of St. Unni are celebrated by the more recent monastic and ecclesiastical writers, and also by the German historians, especially the northern ones, namely those of Bremen, Hamburg, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland; just as by the same, although they are Protestants, the incredible labours of SS. Ansgar and Rimbert are also lavishly praised, and inquiry is made, with no less diligence than we are accustomed to employ, into all those things which pertain to their ecclesiastical honours Cf. Reuterdahl, Ansgarius, page 221 and 222.. And so Reuterdahl Ibid. loc. cit. closes his little book on St. Ansgar, or on the beginnings of the Christian religion among the Swedes (which he published, unless I am mistaken, in the year 1836 in the Swedish tongue, and Mayerhoff in the year 1837 in the German idiom), with these words: In the region (Denmark) in which St. Ansgar chiefly laboured, his name is rightly and deservedly known everywhere. A few years ago our excellent neighbours across the strait festively celebrated his memory. In this very year all Sweden has risen up and celebrates your thousandth anniversary, O first apostle of the north, pious and faithful preacher of the divine gospel of Christ! May your name live among us a thousand years more, and teach us that nothing more blessed can be possessed by men than the Christian faith and mind! Nor certainly did these words seem vain to them. And indeed, if it was once made known to the souls of those slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held that their blood was not yet judged by the Lord, holy and true, nor avenged on those who dwelt on the earth Apocal. chap. 6, V. 19. and had been the cause of their death; who would not trust that, by the help of the most merciful God, those pious wishes of the Swedes too were understood by St. Ansgar, and that he, by the motion of divine grace, repeated for the Danes and Swedes the prayers which, living and dying, likewise with God's help, he poured out for their salvation? Let them continue to cherish such sentiments toward St. Ansgar and the other apostles of their homeland, and let them understand that the cult of the Saints which the Catholic church approves is placed in nothing else! Let them understand universally that our doctrine is no other than that of St. Ansgar, whom they call a pious and faithful preacher of the divine gospel of Christ! But it is the grace of God to extinguish hatreds, to remove opinions rashly taken up against us, and to join men's minds by the bond of charity, that there may be one shepherd and one fold.

LIFE OF ST. UNNI, ARCHBISHOP OF HAMBURG,

From book I of Adam of Bremen according to Lappenberg's edition.

St. Unni's episcopal and apostolic labours amid hardships and difficulties.

Unnus, archbishop of Hamburg. (S.)

BY ADAM OF BREMEN.

St. Unni, promoted to the archbishopric of Hamburg, Archbishop Unni sat 18 years ^a. His years and death I learned as above ^b. It has been handed down to memory by the brethren that, when Reginward had passed away, Leidrad, provost of the choir of Bremen, was elected by the clergy and people ^c. He, using this Unni as chaplain ^d, came to the court. But King Conrad, breathed upon (as is believed) by the divine Spirit, disregarding the fine appearance of Leidrad, offered the pastoral staff to the little Unni, whom he had seen standing behind. To whom also Pope John the tenth, as the privilege ^e indicates, gave the pallium. Now he was a man, as can be seen in his election and his passing, most holy; on account of which holiness he remained familiar with and revered by the kings Conrad and Henry. Whence also he is thus depicted in verse:

Known to princes, Unni was ninth in order [f].

[2] was long hindered from propagating the Gospel; In his days the Hungarians laid waste not only our Saxony and the other provinces on this side of the Rhine, but also Lotharingia and Francia beyond the Rhine ^g. The Danes too, having the Slavs as auxiliaries, ravaging first the Transalbian Saxons and then those on this side of the Elbe, shook Saxony with great terror ^h. Among the Danes at that time Hardecnudth Wrm ⁱ reigned, a most cruel worm, I say, and not moderately hostile to the Christian peoples. He, striving to destroy utterly the Christianity which was in Denmark, drove the priests of God from his borders, and killed very many also by torments.

[3] but then through the victories of Henry the Fowler, But King Henry, fearing God even from a boy and having all his trust in His mercy, triumphed over the Hungarians in many grievous battles ^k; and likewise the Bohemians and Sorbs, tamed by other kings, and the other Slav

peoples he so struck in one great battle that the remainder, who were left almost few, of their own accord promised both tribute to the king and Christianity to God ^l.

[4] especially over the Danes, Then, having entered Denmark with an army, he so terrified King Wrm at the first onset that he sent word that he would do what was commanded and suppliantly begged for peace ^m. Thus Henry the victor, setting the boundaries of the kingdom at Sliaswich, which is now called Heidiba ⁿ, there both established a margrave and ordered a colony of Saxons to dwell ^o. All these things, as a certain bishop of the Danes [p], a prudent man, related them, we, as we truly received them, so faithfully hand on to our church.

[5] he was able to go to the gentiles. Then our most blessed archbishop Unni, seeing that the door of faith had been opened to the nations [q], gave thanks to God for the salvation of the pagans, but especially because the legation of the church of Hammaburg [r], long neglected through the unfavourableness of the time, had received place and time for working, the mercy of God and the valour of King Henry going before. Therefore, judging that nothing harsh and grievous could not be undergone for Christ, he chose to go round the breadth of his diocese in person. The whole flock, they say, of the church of Bremen followed him, sad at the absence of their good shepherd, and ready to go with him both to prison and to death.

[6] He therefore promoted the faith in Denmark And after the confessor of God had come to the Danes, where we have said that the most cruel Worm then reigned, he could not indeed bend him, on account of his innate savagery; but he is said to have gained by his preaching the king's son Harold [s]. Him he made so faithful to Christ that he publicly permitted Christianity, which his father always held in hatred, to be practised, although he had not yet received the sacrament of baptism. Having therefore ordained priests for the individual churches in the Kingdom of the Danes [t], the Saint of God is said to have commended the multitude of believers to Harold. Supported also by his help and envoy, he penetrated all the islands of the Danes [u], evangelizing the word of God to the gentiles, and strengthening in Christ the faithful whom he found held captive there [x].

[7] and then went to Birka in Sweden. Then, following the footsteps of the great preacher Ansgar, rowing across the Baltic sea, he came not without labour to Birka [y]. Whither for 70 years after the death of saint Ansgar no one of the teachers had dared to reach, except only, as we read, Rimbert. So did persecution hold our men back. Birka is a town of the Goths, placed in the middle of Sweden, not far from that temple which the Swedes hold most celebrated in the worship of the Gods, called Ubsola [z]: in which place a certain bay of that strait which is called Baltic or Barbarian, turning toward the north, makes a harbour desirable to the barbarous nations that dwell scattered about this sea, but very dangerous to those who are incautious and ignorant of places of this kind. For the people of Birka, very often attacked by the incursions of pirates, of whom there is a great abundance there, since they cannot resist by force and arms, have undertaken to deceive their enemies by cunning art. Blocking the bay of the unquiet sea for a hundred and more furlongs with masses of hidden rocks, they have made the way of passage dangerous equally for their own people and for the robbers. To this station, because it is the safest in the maritime regions of Sweden, all the ships of the Danes or Northmen, and likewise of the Slavs and Sembi, and other peoples of Scythia [aa], are accustomed to gather solemnly for the various needs of commerce.

[8] where he brought the former Christians back to the church. The confessor of the Lord, having landed in that harbour, began to address the peoples with an unwonted legation. For the Swedes and the Goths [bb], or, if they are better so called, the Northmen, on account of the times of barbaric incursion in which many kings ruled with bloody sway within a few years [cc], having wholly forgotten the Christian religion, could not easily be persuaded to the faith. We have learned from the often-mentioned king of the Danes Suein [dd] that at that time a certain Ring ruled among the Swedes with his sons Herich and Edmund, and that this Ring had had before him Anund, Bern, Olaph, of whom one reads in the Deeds of saint Anschar [ee], and others whose name does not occur. And it is credible that the athlete of God Unni approached these same kings, although they did not believe, and with their permission preached the word of God through Sweden. But in my judgment, just as it seems useless to search out the acts of those who did not believe, so it is impious to pass over the salvation of those who first believed, and through whom they believed. The Swedes, then, and the Goths, first planted in the faith by saint Ansgar and having relapsed again into paganism, were recalled by the holy father Unni. It is enough to know this, lest, if we say more, we be said to wish to lie. For it is better, as blessed Jerome says [ff], to speak true things rustically than to put forth false things eloquently.

[9] There, preparing to return, he dies; And the ministry of his legation having been completed, when at length he was arranging to return, the evangelist of God, seized with sickness at Birka, laid down there the tabernacle of his weary body. But his soul, attended with a great triumph of souls, ascended to the capitol of the heavenly homeland, ever to rejoice. Then the pontiff's disciples, attending to his funeral with weeping and joy, buried the other members in the same town of Birka, carrying back to Bremen only the head, which they laid with fitting honour in the church of saint Peter before the altar. And he died, having completed the course of the good fight, in Scythia, as is written, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 936, indiction 9, about the middle of September. This is the first year of Otto the Great, the 148th from the passing of saint Willehad, first bishop of Bremen [gg].

[10] he is an example to other bishops. Come now, you bishops, who, sitting at home, place the brief delights of glory, gain, belly and sleep in the first place of the episcopal office; look, I say, at this man, poor to the world and small, nay a praiseworthy and great priest of Christ, who, lately crowned with so noble an end, has given an example to posterity that your sloth can be excused by no harshness of times or places: since he himself, passing through the fierce peoples of the north through such great dangers of sea and land, fulfilled the ministry of his legation with such zeal that, breathing his last in the furthest ends of the earth, he laid down his soul for Christ.

ANNOTATIONS.

Similar epigrams are inscribed also to some other bishops of Bremen and Hamburg, a custom much more used among the Greeks than among the Latins. Adam seems to have given only a part, as is plain from Heinrich Wolter's Chronicle of Bremen In Meibom, Rer. Germ. vol. II, page 28.. You have here:

Known to princes, Unno was ninth in order, Of whom thus first is praise given in the house of God.

he made in the year 927 or the following [Cf. Struve, page 226, from Widukind, book I, chap. 35, in Pertz, vol. III, page 432.]. The other Slav peoples whom Adam here points to can be known from Widukind Book I, chap. 36, in Pertz, vol. III, page 433., Thietmar of Merseburg Book I, chap. 6, in Pertz, vol. III, page 737. and others, who describe the battle of Lunkini or Lunzini (Lunkini or Lunzini seems to be Leontium, Lenzen on the Elbe), fought at the beginning of the month of September of the year 929 or 930 and indicated here by Adam. Widukind begins thus: And when the neighbouring nations (to the Saxons) had been made tributary by King Henry, the Apodriti (the Obotrites in the Mecklenburg duchy of Schwerin), the Wilti (Wiltzi, Weletabi, Wlotabi, between the Baltic sea and the rivers Panis, Elbe and Oder), the Hevelli (on the river Havel, whose city is Brandenburg), the Dalamanci (or Daleminzi, in the present kingdom of Saxony on the left of the Elbe), the Boemi (well enough known), the Redarii (in the land of Strelitz), and there was peace, the Redarii fell away from their faith, and, having gathered a multitude, made an attack on the city which is called Wallislevu (Walsleben near the Elbe, between Werben and Arneburg), and took it, all its inhabitants being captured and killed, namely an innumerable multitude. This done, all the barbarous nations dared to rebel. Then follows the battle of Lunzini, in which the few troops of Henry laid low innumerable enemies. All the captives were beheaded on the next day, as had been promised. Then these do not seem to have promised Christianity to God of their own accord, as Adam relates. But in the year 931, when the Obotrites had rebelled again, they were again conquered by Henry's army and their king Micislaus passed over to the Christian religion; as Struve Corp. Hist. Germ. page 227. and very many others narrate from the Annals of Hildesheim, the Continuator of Regino, etc. Cf. Šafařík, vol. II, page 526.

p. That the things which Adam inserted in his Gesta were collected by him between the year 1068 and 1075 is a certain thing Cf. Lappenberg, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 267.. In which space of time the whole of Denmark was still part of the ecclesiastical province of Hamburg. Jutland was divided into four bishoprics, Ribe, Aarhus, Viborg and Børglum; to which Schleswig must be added. The islands took in the dioceses of Odense and Roskilde; and to them must be reckoned Lund in Scania, which afterward became the head of the whole province [Cf. Münter, Kirchen Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. II, part I, page 3 and following.]. Since there are so many in number, labour would be spent in vain in searching out who that bishop of the Danes was, a prudent man, by whom Adam was taught about Danish affairs.

q. From the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 14, v. 26. Paul very often uses the same or a similar phrase. Likewise St. Rimbert in the Life of St. Ansgar, chap. 12.

r. Adam often speaks of the legation of the church of Hamburg. Namely, St. Ansgar had been constituted legate of the Holy See by Gregory IV and St. Nicholas I among all the peoples round about of the Swedes, or Danes, and also of the Slavs, or among the others, wherever in those parts the divine goodness should open the door, public authority of evangelizing being granted [Cf. the decree of each in Acta SS. vol. I of Feb. page 406, and the Life of St. Ansgar, ibid. page 418.]. Whether this legation was annexed to the person of St. Ansgar or to his see might be disputed; but it was no less commended by St. Nicholas to his successors than to him to persist in winning the gentile peoples. That St. Unni set out to the Danes in the very year 931, in which we have shown the victory was won by Henry the Fowler, is probable: but in the following year he came into Germany to be present at the assembly of Erfurt on June 1. On which matter compare what was said at num. 48 of the preliminary Commentary.

Harald, surnamed Blaatand, Blue-tooth, or rather Black-tooth. Of him there was discussion in § VII of the preliminary Commentary. He was born before the year 910 and died a little before the year 988 Cf. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 73. or in that very year Ibid. page 83.. Snorri Sturluson agrees Heims Kringla, Olaf Tryggwasons Saga, chap. 23, page 225; Peringskiöld ed. that he was not baptized by St. Unni. To this Dahlmann also refers Geschichte von Dännemark, vol. I, page 76. these verses of Dudo, dean of St. Quentin in the Vermandois De Gestis Norm. duc. book III, in Migne. Patrologia, vol. CXLI. col. 710.:

King Haigrold, Although you are not anointed with chrism, And not reborn by holy baptism: Lo, farewell, and hail, and greeting ever In the Godhead.

And with these plaudits Dudo follows Harald because in the year 945 he had come to the help of the young duke Richard: but although it is established that Haigrold, or Harald, was a Dane and is honoured with the name of king by the Norman writers, it is nevertheless by no means held certain by all that he is the same as Harald Bluetooth [Cf. Depping. Hist. des expéd. maritimes des Normands, vol. II, page 56, 57, 156 and following, Brussels edition.]. He seems to have been baptized in the year 965 or the following Cf. Dahlmann, vol. I, page 81. and then to have spent much effort to promote the faith among his people. It is said by many, even older, historians that he was conquered in battle by his son Svein, who aspired to the kingdom and was helped by the rest of the gentiles, and shortly afterward died of a wound he had received. By others he is called an apostate, because they confuse him with another Harald.

t. Presbyters summoned from New Corvey and from almost all the rest of Saxony are to be understood. For Nardi is not to be heeded Dei Parrochi. vol. I, page 208 and following. when he teaches that only in the twelfth century did it prevail that presbyters should be called absolutely sacerdotes. In the Gelasian sacramentary the presbyter is ordered to say on the Anniversary of his consecration In Migne, Patrologia. vol. LXXIV, col. 1150.: By which Thou didst command me to be consecrated a sacerdos at the holy altars. Similarly in the Mass of St. Felix, presbyter of Nola, before whom almost no confessor presbyters obtained ecclesiastical cult, the Gradual Juravit was formerly said Antiphonaire de S. Grégoire, Facsimile, etc. page 47.. But, these being omitted, Adam himself is witness that those ordained by St. Unni, or established in a fixed see, throughout Denmark were not bishops but presbyters; since further on he writes of St. Adaldag, St. Unni's successor Book II, chap. 50, num. 4, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 307.: He first ordained bishops for Denmark.

u. Of these there was discussion at num. 74 of the preliminary Commentary.

x. The faithful captives, whom the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians had reduced to slavery, were most useful to the propagation of the gospel: by these almost first were the seeds of the faith cast in the north.

y. Of Birka and other things pertaining here there was discussion in the preliminary Commentary, num. 78 and following.

z. Adam explains all these things more fully in his fourth Book, or the Description of the Islands of the North, chap. 235 In Pertz, vol. VII, page 380.. Innumerable commentaries have been written on these things by the Swedes.

aa. By the Slavs and Sembi he means all the southern dwellers by the Baltic sea as far as Lithuania; by the peoples of Scythia, the Swedes themselves.

bb. Birka was placed between the Swedes and the Goths; so that Adam has ascribed it now to these, now to those [Cf. Langebek, Scriptt. rer. Dan. vol. I, page 445 and following. Geijer, Histoire de Suède, vol. I, page 62.].

cc. Sweden had at that time kings properly so called, who were very few in number, namely Eric Emundsson, who after long wars with Harald Hårfagre over Norway died about the year 885. His son Biorn succeeded him

for fifty years, having probably died in the year 935, in which St. Unni came into Sweden. And that the homeland had flourished through the long reign of Biorn was openly declared eighty years afterward in the public assemblies Cf. Geijer, vol. I, page 98 and 99.. Sweden had also kings of armies (kärkonungar) and kings of the sea (sjökonungar) Ibid. page 89.. Is Adam speaking of these? Or of the lesser kings (Härads konungar, Fylkis konungar), who had not yet been wholly abolished Ibid. page 99.?

dd. A little after the year 1069 Adam had gone to the king of the Danes Svend Estrithson, staying, as it seems, in Zealand; who received him most kindly and taught him very many things about the situation and history of the northern lands. So the more recent editor of Adam Lappenberg, in Pertz, vol. VII, page 268..

ee. That Ring is wholly unknown, nor does his name occur in the history of the discords which boiled up at that time over the kingdom. Wherefore Geijer conjectures Hist. de Suède, vol. I, page 99. that he was viceroy or guardian of Eric and Olaf, sons of Biorn, or is to be reckoned among the lesser kings; of whom at letter cc. But it is hardly credible that King Svein spoke of those lesser kings. For my part I should believe that Ring is a surname of Biorn; which Sigurd Ring also had. Biorn, departing from Life, left two sons under age, Eric and Olaf; which Olaf Adam may have called Edmund. Of Anund, or Emund, there is talk in the Life of St. Ansgar, chap. 19; of Bern, or Biorn, chap. 11; of Olaf, or Olef, chap. 26 and 50 In Pertz, vol. II, page 697, 702, 711 and 714.

ff. As Lappenberg notes at this place, the words of St. Jerome have been somewhat changed, who wrote in letter 2 (Paris ed. 1684, vol. I, page 10 F): And it is much better, of two imperfect things, to have holy rusticity than sinful eloquence.

gg. St. Willehad died, as was said at num. 22 of the preliminary Commentary, on November 8 of the year 789.