CHURCH HISTORY. FIFTH PERIOD. FROM GREGORY THE SEVENTH TO BONIFACE THE EIGHTH. FROM THE YEAR 1073 TO THE YEAR 1294. SECTION FIRST. EXTENSION AND LIMITATION OF THE CHRISTIAN Of this ALREADY, in the preceding period, we took notice of the repeated but unsuccessful attempts to convert the Slavonian tribes living within and on the borders of Germany. Such undertakings, which, without respecting the peculiarities of national character, aimed to force upon the necks of these tribes the yoke of a foreign domination, along with that of the hierarchy, would necessarily prove either a total failure or barren of all salutary influences. The people would struggle, of course, against what was thus imposed on them. sort, were the undertakings of the dukes of Poland to bring the Pommeranians, a nation dwelling on their borders, under their dominion and into subjection to the Christian church. The Poles themselves, as we observed in the preceding period, had been but imperfectly converted, and the consequences of this still continued to be observable in the religious condition of that people; it was the last quarter, therefore, from which to expect any right measures to proceed for effecting the conversion of a pagan nation. Back-Pommerania having been already, a hundred years before, reduced to a condition of dependence on the Poles, Boleslav the Third (Krzivousti) duke of Poland, in the year 1121, succeeded in compelling West Pommerania also, and its regent, duke Wartislav, to acknow VOL. VII. B ledge his supremacy. Eight thousand Pommeranians were removed by him to a district bordering immediately on his own dominions, in order that they might there learn to forget their ancient customs, their love of freedom, and their old religion, and be induced at length to embrace Christianity. But the Polish bishops were neither inclined nor fitted to operate as missionaries in Pommerania; it was much easier, in this period, to find among the monks men who shrunk from no difficulties or dangers, but were prepared to consecrate themselves, with cheerful alacrity, to any enterprise undertaken in the service of the church, and for the good of mankind. The zeal of these good men, however, was not always accompanied with correct views or sound discretion. Often too contracted in their notions to be able to enter into the views and feelings of rude tribes with customs differing widely from their own, they were least of all fitted to introduce Christianity for the first time among a people like the Pommeranians, a merry, well-conditioned, life-enjoying race, abundantly furnished by nature with every means of a comfortable subsistence, so that a poor man or a beggar was not to be seen amongst them. Having had no experience of those feelings which gave birth to monachism, they could not understand that peculiar mode of life. The monks, in their squalid raiment, appeared to them a mean, despicable set of men, roving about in search of a livelihood. Poverty was here regarded as altogether unworthy of the priesthood; for the people were accustomed to see their own priests appear in wealth and splendour. Hence the monks were spurned with scorn and contempt. Such especially was the treatment experienced by a missionary who came to these parts from the distant country of Spain,-the bishop Bernard.* Being a native of Spain, he was unfitted * This fact is not stated, it is true, in the most trustworthy account we have of this mission, which is contained in the work of an unknown contemporary writer of the life of bishop Otto of Bamberg, published by Canisius, in his Lectiones antiquæ, t. iii. p. ii. ; but it is reported by the Bambergian abbot Andreas, who wrote in the second half of the fifteenth century. The latter, however, in giving this account, appeals to the testimony of Ulric, a priest in immediate attendance on bishop Otto himself; and what we have said with regard to the missionary efforts of the monks generally, is confirmed at least by the more certain authority of the anonymous writer just mentioned. Speaking of bishop Otto, he says: "Quia terram Pommeranorum opulentam audiverat et egenos sive men already, by national temperament, to act as a missionary among these people of the north, whose very language it must have been difficult for him to understand. Originally an anchoret, he had lived a strictly ascetic life, when, at the instance of pope Paschalis the Second, he took upon himself a bishopric made vacant by the removal of its former occupant ;* but finding it impossible to gain the love of his community, a portion of whom still continued to adhere to his predecessor, he abandoned the post for the purpose of avoiding disputes, to which his fondness for peace and quiet was most strongly repugnant, choosing rather to avail himself of his episcopal dignity to go and found a new church among the Pommeranians. Accompanied by his chaplain, he repaired to that country: but with a bent of mind so strongly given to asceticism, he wanted the necessary prudence for such an undertaking. He went about barefoot, clad in the garments he was used to wear as an anchoret. He imagined that, in order to do the work of a missionary in the sense of Christ, and according to the example of the Apostles, he must strictly follow the directions which Christ gave to them, Matth. x. 9, 10, without considering that Christ gave his directions in this particular form with reference to a particular and transient period of time, and a peculiar condition of things, entirely different from the circumstances of his own field of labour; and so, for the reasons we have alluded to, he very soon began to be regarded by the Pommeranians with contempt. They refrained, however, from doing him the least injury; till, prompted by a fanatical longing after martyrdom, he destroyed a sacred image in Julin, a town situated on the island of Wollin,-a deed which, as it neither contributed to remove idolatry from the hearts of men, nor to implant the true faith in its stead, could only serve, without answering a single good purpose, to irritate the minds of the people. The Pommeranians would no longer dicos penitus non habere, sed vehementer aspernari, et jamdudum quosdam servos Dei prædicatores egenos propter inopiam contemsisse, quasi non pro salute hominum, sed pro sua necessitate relevanda, officio insisterent prædicandi.” *It was at the time of the schism which grew out of the quarrel betwixt the emperor Henry the Fourth and pope Gregory the Seventh; in which dispute, this deposed bishop may, perhaps, have taken an active part as an opponent of the papal system. suffer him, it is true, to remain amongst them; but whether it was that they were a people less addicted to religious fanaticism than other pagan nations within our knowledge, and Bernard's appearance served rather to move their pity than to excite their hatred and stir them up to persecution; or whether it was that they dreaded the vengeance of duke Boleslav; the fact was, they still abstained from all violence to his person, but contented themselves with putting him on board a ship, and sending him out of their country. Thus, by his own imprudent conduct, bishop Bernard defeated the object of his enterprise; still, however, he contributed indirectly to the founding of a permanent mission in this country; and the experience which he had gone through would, moreover, serve as a profitable lesson to the man who might come after him. He betook himself to Bamberg, where the severe austerity of his life, as well as his accurate knowledge of the ecclesiastical reckoning of time, would doubtless give him a high place in the estimation of the clergy. And here he found in bishop Otto a man that took a deep interest in pious enterprises, and one also peculiarly well fitted, and prepared by many of the previous circumstances of his life, for just such a mission. Otto was decended from a noble, but as it would seem not wealthy Suabian family. He received a learned education, according to the fashion of those times; but, being a younger son, he could not obtain the requisite means for prosecuting his scientific studies to the extent he desired, and especially for visiting the then flourishing University of Paris, but was obliged to expend all his energies, in the early part of his life, in gaining a livelihood. As Poland, at this time, stood greatly in need of an educated clergy, and he hoped that he should be able to turn his knowledge to the best account in a country that still remained so far behind others in Christian culture, he directed his steps to that quarter, with the intention of setting up a school there. In this employment he soon rose to consideration and influence; and the more readily, inasmuch as there were very few at that time in Poland who were capable of teaching all the branches reckoned in this period as belonging to a scholastic education. Children were put under his care from many distinguished families, and in this way he came into contact with the principal men of the land. His |