Apostles of mediaeval Europe

Preface

THESE Lives are naturally based, to a considerable extent, on my History of Christian Missions in the Middle Ages , which I have at times been advised to publish in a somewhat more popular form, but the numerous notes and references there given have been omitted, while the Lives themselves have been re~cast, and in some cases entirely re-written.

The Mediaeval Period is apt to be altogether over¬ looked in modern accounts of Christian Missions, and yet it was fertile in noble and heroic men, who laid the foundations of many of the Churches of Modern Europe, and into whose labours we have entered.

If we remember to make due allowance for the Age in which they lived, we shall, I think, conclude that the roll of missionary heroes, since the days of the Apostles, can point to few more glorious names than of some of those whose Memoirs are recorded in the following pages.

Gr. F. M.

Bude, Cornwall, Aug. 13, 1869.

S.L. VII.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

DESTRUCTION OF THE IDOL SWANTEVIT . Frontispiece .

ST. FRANCIS AND KING LAOGHAIRE . To face 35

THANGBRAND GIVES HIS SHIELD TO OLAF . „ 180

Introduction

At the commencement of an account of some of the apostles of Mediaeval Europe, it may be well to notice briefly some of the chief characteristics of the mediaeval period itself, and especially of the mission field then presented to the Church, and the work she was called upon to accomplish.

During the first four hundred years of her existence, the Christian Church had not, except in the extreme East, extended her conquests far beyond the limits of the Roman empire.

Her territorial field may be said to have mainly included the countries immediately bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea, Numidia and Egypt, Pales¬ tine and Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Southern Gaul, the very centre of the old world and its heathen culture.

INTRODUCTION.

Within this area the kingdom of heaven had been establishing itself gradually and silently. The word, indeed, had been running very swiftly, but it was the word of him, whose early life had been spent in an obscure village of Palestine, and who had died the death of the malefactor and the slave. The mustard seed and the hidden leaven, had, even as he had predicted, been true figures of its progress, overlooked by the world, yet penetrating the world with its secret and subduing force.

There is a mystery, as has been often observed, about the planting of the early Church in various places. Who knows for certain how that congrega¬ tion originated which was already at Damascus when the disciple of Gamaliel went thither breathing forth threatening and slaughter against those of the way? Who can throw any clear light on the planting of the first Church of Rome, to which St. Paul addresses so many salutations ? Who, again, so laboured in establishing the early Church of France, that in the second and third centuries a Pothinus and an Irenseus could enter into their labours ? Who, lastly, can give any certain account of the origin of the early British Church ?

Thus for a long period the work of the Church was almost imperceptible in the great Roman world. Its going forth was not proclaimed on the housetop or in the market-place. The new faith made its way from below rather than from above. Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble, were amongst those first called to join its ranks. In the literal sense

INTRODUCTION.

of the word, it worked its way at first “ underground, under camp and palace, under senate and forum, as unknown, and -yet well known; as dying, and, behold, it lived ! ” 1

But at length the leaven began to pervade the whole mass of society. In spite of contempt and outrage, the glad tidings found eager listeners. Philosophers might scoff at the first believers. Politicians might suspect them. The populace might pursue them with ferocious yells. A Nero might persecute them to avert general detestation from himself ; a Hadrian and a Trajan, as deeming them guilty of insubordi¬ nation or treason ; a Marcus Aurelius and a Decius, from horror at the public calamities of the empire ; a Diocletian, as recognising in the new and myste¬ rious society a formidable rival to be put down and crushed. But there were at all times those to whom the new faith spake as never man spake. There were always the children by whom its wisdom was justified.

The story of Justin Martyr, who, after trying every other system in vain, was advised by the aged stranger on the sea-shore to inquire into the “new philo¬ sophy, ’’ was, no doubt, the story of many. Self-con¬ victed of his impotency to regenerate himself, man cried out with Seneca, “ O that one would stretch out his hand ! ” and sighed for relief from the end¬ less strife of discordant systems. The religions of heathenism had taken deep root neither in the intel¬ lect, the conscience, nor the affections of mankind, i Stanley’s “Lectures on Ecclesiastical History,” Introd. p. xxxviil,

B 2

INTRODUCTION.

Art and literature, philosophy and politics, had done their utmost, and yet man had not attained that which he felt he needed. His soul still thirsted ; it had reached no fountain of living water.

To these deep-felt wants the Gospel responded, and thus exerted a direct, a divine influence. It calmed the clashing creeds of heathendom by proclaiming the unity of the Godhead. It attracted the hearts of men by its revelation of his true character as a Father. It proclaimed the glad tidings of his infinite love as displayed in the incarnation of his Eternal Son. It assuaged the sense of guilt by pointing to the sacrifice of the Cross. It strengthened the power of hope by bringing to light life and immortality, and the glory of the world to come.

And while it thus proved its adaptation to the wants of men, it manifested its divine power some¬ times in miracles and signs, the echoes of the Apos¬ tolic ages, often in the constancy of its martyrs under persecution, oftener still in the upright walk, the holi¬ ness, the charity of its teachers. What they effected directly was effected as powerfully, though indirectly, by Christian captives, Christian colonists, Christian soldiers. Apologists, before long, like Irenseus and Justin, Cyprian and Athenagoras, Origen and Tertullian, justified the claims of the new faith to be the true philosophy. The Fathers of the East moulded its creeds. The Empire of the West bequeathed to it its organization and its laws. With Constantine it was publicly recognised as the religion of the State ; and at length the symbol of the most degrading

INTRODUCTION.

punishment the Roman could inflict on the malefactor and the slave became the symbol of an empire’s creed, and was blazoned on the conqueror’s banner.

But when the Iron Kingdom had run its course, a very different work was proposed to the energies of the Christian teachers. As the Roman empire sank beneath her feet, its last embers trampled out by Alaric, the Church found herself confronted with one of the most stupendous tasks that could have been presented to her to accomplish.

Scarcely recovering herself from the shock of the barbarian invasions, she was called to train and civilize races fresh from their native wilds, filled with all the ardour and impetuosity of youth, and ignorant of the first principles of order and settled life.

For centuries had they been gathering from afar, and now they were precipitated over the face of Europe. Celt and Teuton, Sclave and Hun, followed each other in quick succession, with strange language and strange customs, to fill the abyss of servitude and corruption in which the Roman empire had disap¬ peared, and to infuse a new life-blood into its effete civilization.

And what was the condition of the provinces of the great empire where they now appeared, and which they made a beaten highway for their passage ?

Little change for the better had their, social and domestic life experienced as the ring of empire; had widened more and more. Crushed under a weight of merciless taxation, drained of their population by repeated levies for the imperial armies, Italy and

INTRODUCTION.

Gaul, and even more distant provinces, had almost ceased to till the soil. Many tracts were given up to the wasteful tenure of discharged soldiers, or were cultivated by the manacled hands of slaves. Native chieftains, aspiring to the pomp and state of the Roman patrician, exalted themselves to their fancied dignity on the ruins of the yeomanry class. “ The old tenantry, or clansmen, were ejected from their ancient holdings, to constitute from the aggregation of them one of those vast estates, or latifundia , which were cultivated entirely by slaves for the behoof of the proprietors alone. From them they drew the means of boundless self-indulgence, but left to the hus¬ bandman nothing beyond the most scanty allowance of the bare necessaries of human existence ; and when they were hurried by fatigue, by want, and by sickness to premature graves, they recruited their number from the Roman slave-markets.” 1

And when this work of depopulation had been going on for centuries, what was likely to be the con¬ dition of the more remote country districts in Gaul or Italy, when they were exposed to the ravages of tribes as careless of the arts of agriculture as the imperial legions they had expelled ?

As it was in the days of the Judges in Israel, so was it now. The villages ceased 2 throughout the land. Towns deserted by their inhabitants com¬ pletely disappeared, or could be traced only by the

1 Sir James Stephen’s “Lectures on the History of France,” vol. i. p. 27.

2 Judg. v. 7.

IN TROD UCTION.

attentive traveller, with the utmost difficulty, under the thick overgrowth of dense woods. Temples and baths, villas and streets, became a mass of crumbling ruins, over which the tangled underwood gradually ex¬ tended its sway, till at length it joined the immense and impenetrable forests, which always were a prominent feature in the scenery of Gaul and Germany, and formed, by the thick growth of maple and birch, aspen and witch-elm, a boundless wilderness of forest trees.

“ On the north of the Rhine alone/' writes Montalembert, “six great deserts existed at the end of the sixth century — the desert of Reome, between Tonnerre and Montbard ; the desert of Morvan ; the desert of Jura ; the desert of the Vosges ; the desert of Switzerland, between Bienne and Lucerne ; and the desert of Gruyere, between the Savine and the Aar. Advancing towards the north, the wooded regions become more and more profound and exten¬ sive. Even in the provinces least depopulated and best cultivated, through the most favourable soils and climates, long wooded lines extended from north to south, and from the rising to the setting sun, con¬ necting the great masses of forest with each other, surrounding and enveloping Gaul as in a vast net¬ work of shade and silence.”

“ We must imagine Gaul,” he continues, “ and all the neighbouring countries, the whole extent of France, Switzerland, Belgium, and both banks of the Rhine — that is to say, the richest and most populous countries of modern Europe — covered with forests such as are scarcely to be seen in America, and of

INTRODUCTION.

which there does not remain the slightest trace in the ancient world. We must figure to ourselves these masses of sombre and impenetrable wood covering hills and valleys, the high table-land as well as the marshy bottoms, broken here and there by water¬ courses which laboriously forced a way for them¬ selves across the roots of fallen trees; perpetually divided by bogs and marshes which swallowed up the animals or men who were so ill-advised as to risk themselves there ; and inhabited by innumerable wild beasts, whose ferocity had scarcely been accustomed to fly before man, and of which many different species have since almost completely disappeared from our country.” 1

And now, as from the gloom of these solitudes the new tribes, wild and wasteful, without prudence or forethought or steady industry, issued forth upon the towns and cities of Southern Europe, according as in¬ ternal war or factions drove them to seek new homes, and gradually settled down in their midst, a grave question arose. Who would have the courage to seek out these wild races ? Who would brave all dangers in preaching to them the word of life ? Who would plunge into the darkness of these forests, proclaim the divine message to the inhabitants that dwelt around, improve their infant agriculture, and instil amongst them the first principles of civilization ?

This was the question, and we shall see how it was answered. At this critical period, when the founda-

1 Montalembert’s “Monks of the West,” vol. ii. pp. 319, 320, English Translation.

INTRODUCTION.

tions of the great deep seemed to be broken up, and chaos to have come back to earth, we shall take our stand to watch how the Christian Church set out on her great work ; how she sent forth men who did not count their lives dear unto them, if they might win over to the fold of Christ the multitudes that bade them come over and help them.

Mindful of the difficulties to be encountered in making the effort at all, and of the features of the times when it was made, we shall not expect per¬ fection of men who partook of the common infirmities of our nature ; we shall rather rejoice to trace from time to time the fulfilment of the Divine word, Be¬ hold I am with you alway , even unto the end of the world ,l and to observe how the Lord of the harvest was pleased in the darkest times to send forth labourers into his harvest ?

1 St. Matt, xxviii. 20. 2 St. Matt. ix. 38.

Chapter I. The Mission Field Of The Middle Ages

And, first, it will be well to notice some of the more striking features, moral and religious, of the nations which now awaited the missionary zeal of the Chris¬ tian Church. As an outline is all that can possibly be attempted, we may, sinking minor divergences of race, and regarding them solely in their social and religious aspects, arrange these nations under the several groups of Celts, Teutons, and Sclaves.

i. With the first group indeed we shall be but very partially concerned. The Celtic races had, except in Ireland and Northern Britain, to a great extent become amalgamated with the institutions, feelings, and social life of their Roman conquerors, and had learned to ascribe to their deities the attributes of the gods of Rome. We are therefore hardly concerned with their religious creed, except so far as they formed an advanced outpost among the Western nations, and, wThen evangelized by Christian missionaries, became, in their turn, signally ardent and successful preachers of their newly-adopted faith.

The Commentaries of Csesar give us the earliest sketch of the social and moral features of the Celtic

THE MISSION FIELD.

1 1 character. During his campaigns, which lasted upwards of fourteen years, and cost him two millions of men, this great commander had ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with them, and he has described with minute accuracy their gigantic stature, fair com¬ plexions, enormous muscular strength, and love of personal decoration.1

Fond of war, hot of temper, but simple and void of' malice, they knew little of that personal liberty, which was the proud characteristic of the Teuton. While the meanest Teuton was independent and free, the lower orders among the Celts were little better than in a state of slavery, for all real freedom and power centred in their chieftains.

The same great warrior has given us the fullest account of the Druids, the all-powerful religious order of the Celtic tribes. Under their various divisions, they were at once the ministers of a theocracy and the judges and legislators of the people. Enjoying an immunity from service in the army and the obliga¬ tion to pay taxes, they instructed the youth of the nation in the mysteries of learning, the majority of which they veiled in inviolable secrecy, and did not suffer to be committed to writing. The chief doctrine, however, that they did impart, seems to have been the immortality of the soul, or rather its transmigration to another body, to which was added instruction in the nature and motions of the sun, moon, and stars, and the power and greatness of the immortal gods.

Though proscribed by successive Roman generals, 1 Csesar, “ De Bel. Gall.” vi. 13.

and nominally exterminated in Britain by Suetonius Paulinus, Druidism lingered on for centuries in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. In the “ Book of Armagh” the monarch of Ireland is represented, at the arrival of St. Patrick, as having in his service his soothsayer and magicians, his augurs and diviners. A member of the same order withstood with the utmost pertinacity the first preaching of St. Columba in Scotland,1 and in the “Book of Leinster” we find an early Irish king asking the Druids to ascertain for him by their arts the events that were to happen to him during the ensuing year.

Almost of equal rank with the Druids was the Ollamh, the “bard” or “gleeman,” and only a step lower stood the Seanchaidhe, the “ historian ” or “ story-teller.” The person of the former was regarded as inviolate. With the princes and the Druids, he took part in the great national assemblies ; he ranked next to the monarch himself, had a fixed title in the chief¬ tain’s territory, besides ample perquisites for himself and his attendants, and by carrying or sending his wand to any person or place he conferred a temporary sanctuary from injury or arrest.

As to the Celtic religious belief, however modified it may have been by subsequent contact with Roman or Teutonic systems, it is clear that in its original

1 See Adamnan’s “Life of St. Columba,” by Reeves, p. 74 n. In the Irish MS. of St. Paul’s Epistles at Wurtzburg the gloss on Jannes and Jambres, in 2 Tim. iii. 8, is duo Druidce SEgyptiaci. In an ancient hymn, ascribed to St. Columba, we find the expression, “Christ the Son of God is my Druid.” — Miscell. Irish Arch. Soc.

OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

form it was essentially the worship of the powers of nature. Highest in the Celtic pantheon was the sun, the “ life of everything,” the “ source of all being,” who shared the devotion of his worshippers with the moon and stars, with genii of the hills and the valley, of the grove and the spring. The sacred principle of fire also received special adoration. The season of the vernal equinox was ushered in by the sacred festival of the Bel-tine, or “ the lucky fire,” and was celebrated with those peculiar rites, which once from every hill-top in Ireland welcomed the return of the solar beams and the banishment of winter’s gloom, but now linger only in the popular sports of May Day.

The records of missionary labour in Ireland and Scotland do not make any special mention of those numerous gods, which Caesar describes as worshipped in Gaul, and to which he has transferred the attributes of the deities of Rome. But the apostle of Ireland is represented in the earliest annals as recalling his converts from the worship not only of spectres and genii, but of idols also, the greatest of which, the image of Crom-cruach,1 stood on the plain of Magh Slecht, “the Plain of Adoration,” in the county of Cavan, and was the chief object of native worship till its destruction by him.

As a rule, however, the original form of the Druidic

1 “ Supposed to have been also termed Crom-dubh , ‘the black stoopingstone,’ and to have given rise to the name of Cromdubh or Cromduff Sunday, by which the last Sunday in summer, or the Sunday next before All Saints’ Day, is commonly known in Ireland.” — Todd’s “ Life of St. Patrick,” p. 128.

ritual was marked by much simplicity. The shadow of the sacred grove, or the wide-spreading oak with its mystic misletoe, was the Druid’s temple ; the hill-top, with its cromlech or altar-stone, his nearest approach to architecture ; while the triple procession round the sacred circle from east to west, the search for the misletoe on the sixth day of the moon, the sacrifice of the milk-white bull, and the usual methods of augury and divination, constituted the chief portion of his sacred rites. But at particular times the earnest craving to appease offended powers, or the dread of sudden danger, or the outbreak of some terrible pes¬ tilence, suggested the offering of those sacrifices of human beings which Csesar has described, and which long continued to be the custom of the Celtic tribes.

2. With this outline of Celtic superstitions, we must pass on to the Teuton. Under this generic name we include not only the inhabitants of the extensive region ; which, bounded by the Baltic on the north, the Rhine on the west, the Vistula and Oder on the east, may be called, with tolerable accuracy, the European home of the Teutonic tribes, but also those hardy Northmen, whose gaudy but terrible barks bore them, during the eighth and ninth centuries, from their homes in Denmark and Sweden to be the scourge of the European shores.

Differ as these undoubtedly did in minor points, in all the essentials of their moral and religious character they were similar, and for our purposes it will suffice to speak of them together.

The earliest Teutonic doctrine, then, appears to

OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

have recognised one Supreme Being, whom it repre¬ sents as Master of the universe, whom all things obey.

“Who is first and eldest of the gods ?” it is asked in the Edda, and the answer is, “He is called Allfadir in our tongue. Ele lives from all ages, and rules over his realm, and sways all things, great and small ; he made heaven and earth, and the lift — that is, the sky — and all that belongs to them ; and, what is more, He made man, and gave him a soul that shall live and never perish, though the body rot to mould or burn to ashes. His is an infinite power, a boundless knowledge, an incorruptible justice. He cannot be confined within the enclosure of walls, or represented by any likeness to the human figure.”1

Such appears to have been the primitive faith. Allfadir would be a name naturally dear to a people which as yet had hardly passed the limits of the patriarchal state, amongst whom every father of a family was at once a priest and king in his own house.

But the idea of a pure spirit was too refined to retain any lasting hold on the mind and conscience. It lost its original distinctness, and retired more and more into the background, surviving only as the feeble echo of an older and purer creed. Just as the Aryan in crossing the Hindu Alps was spell¬ bound by the new and beauteous world into which he was transplanted, so the Teuton, in the course of his migrations towards colder climes, bowed down

1 See Dasent’s “ Norsemen in Iceland,” p. 187, and compare Tacitus, “Germania,” chap. ix.

i6 before the wild and overbearing powers of nature, and then out of nature-worship arose an elaborate form of hero-worship, the adoration of the conquerors of nature, that is, of man himself, with his virtues and his vices.

From the Invisible One emanates, so thought the Teuton, an infinite number of inferior deities, whose temple is every part of the invisible world. Hence nature was to be venerated in all her forms and mani¬ festations. The heavenly bodies, the sun and moon and stars ; the earth, with its trees and springs, its fountains and hills ; the sea, with its ebb and flow, its storm and calm ; — all were regarded with deepest reverence. And since all nature was but an organ and instrument of deity, it was of the utmost import¬ ance to pay attention even to the most indifferent phenomena. Nothing was too trifling. The quivering leaf, the crackling flame, the falling thunderbolt, the flight ior singing of birds, the neighing of horses, man’s dreams and visions, even the movements of his pulse, all needed attention, all might give some sign from the other world.

Hence the peculiar regard that was paid, amongst all the Teutonic nations, Gothic, Saxon, and Scan¬ dinavian, to oracles and divinations, to auspices, presages, and lots. Hence the functions of the pro¬ phetess and the sibyl, of the enchanter, the interpreter of dreams, the diviner by offering-cups,1 or the entrails of victims, or human sacrifices. Hence the raisers of storms, the Runic sticks, and all the usual instru-

1 Comp. Gen. xliv. 5.

OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

ments of heathenism for exploring the secrets either of the past or the future. Upsal was the Teutonic Delphi, as famous for its oracles as for its sacrifices. Here might be found diviners, both male and female, who could supply runes to secure victory in the battle, to preserve from poison, to heal bodily in¬ firmities, or to chase away melancholy.1 Thus all nature had a voice which could speak, and to which all men were bound to hearken. The skies, the woods, the waters, were the Teuton’s books, his oracles, his divinities.

But nature- worship did not satisfy. The Teuton ceased in time to quail before her mighty powers. He learnt to defy the wind and storm, the frost and cold. So nature-worship became entangled with a complicated system of human gods.

The first and eldest of the gods, we saw, was Allfadir, Odin, or Wotan. But in process of time the great Father was resolved into his attributes. His power was divided amongst a number of inferior divinities, sprung from himself, to each of whom he had imparted a portion of his greatness. Hence the twelve Hisir and the twelve Asyniar. Moreover, as in the Hindu mythology, Brahm is almost forgotten before Vishnu, or the more terrible Siva and Kali, so Odin shared the worship of his votaries with Thor the “ Thunderer,” the “ chief of the gods in strength

1 The “ Indiculus Superstitionum ” and the Lives of the Mediaeval Missionaries afford an insight into the various kinds of Teutonic sorcery. Comp, the letter of Boniface to Cuthbert, Ep. lxiii. ed. Migne, and the appendix to Kemble’s “ Saxons in England,” vol. i.

S.L. VII. Q and might;” with Tyr, the Teutonic Mars; the “ bravest of all the gods, the giver of victory, and god of battle ; ” with Freyr, the god of fertility, of seed¬ time and harvest, of marriage and fruitfulness ; with Baldr, fairest of all the sons of Odin, the Phoebus Apollo of the Teuton, “the restorer of peace, the maker-up of quarrels ; ” while Frigga, Odin’s wife, presided over the sweet spring-time and the rising seed, with her attendants, Fulla, “plenty,” Hlin, “warmth,” and Gna, “the sweet and gentle breeze.”

The .dEsir and the Asyniar were the blithe, bene¬ ficent powers. But the Teuton could not look out upon the natural world, without tracing in its contra¬ dictory phenomena the operation of other powers, dark and sinister, which had brought about a convul¬ sion in high places, and with whose machinations the human race had become entangled. Hence the belief in monstrous fiends and giants, cruel, powerful, and inexorable. Chief of these was Loki, the “ calumniator and backbiter of the gods,” “the grand contriver of deceit and fraud.” In his form he was fairer than any of human mould, but his mind was evil, his nature feeble, and “he cheated in all things, and in the arts of perfidy and craft he had no equal.” Once the friend and associate of the EEsir, united with them in sacred brotherhood, he fell like Lucifer from his high estate, and terrible was his threefold offspring, — the first, Fenris-wolf; the second, Midgard’s worm ; the third, a daughter, Hel, the goddess of death. These are the enemies of the EEsir, the authors of disquiet and strife, and with their entrance

OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

into the Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology the older and milder religion assumed a more warlike and savage character. Instead of ruling the world in peace, the “Father of gods and men” became V alfadir, the god of battles, the “ terrible and severe god,” who prepared for the warrior the feast in Valhalla.1

Such, roughly and briefly, v/ere the outlines of the Teuton’s creed, to which everywhere and at all times he clung, and for which he died, for it was “ the transfiguration of the natural man, with all his virtues and vices, with all his feelings, and passions, and natural affections.” 2 Hence the free and easy way in which the Teuton regarded his gods. If he honoured them right, and offered the due sacrifices, he claimed his reward. If he considered himself unfairly treated, he openly reproved them, forsook their worship, and destroyed their temples.

For though it may be true that in early times the Teuton knew nothing of temples made with hands, that the Deity, whom no enclosure could contain, or mortal form represent, received the adoration of his worshippers in the obscurity of the wood, or on the lonely mountain-top, yet without doubt the intro¬ duction of an elaborate form of polytheism brought with it in time a more elaborate form of external worship.