their ministerial labours among the Cimbrians and Danes, in order to engage them to imitate such an illustrious example; and their exhortations were crowned with remarkable success, to which the stupendous miracles performed by Poppon are said to have contributed in a particular manner. These miracles indeed were of such a kind as manifestly shows that they derived their origin from human art, and not from a divine interposition." As long as Harald lived, he used every wise and probable method of confirming his subjects in the religion they had embraced. For this purpose he established bishops in several parts of his dominions, enacted excellent laws, abrogated superstitious customs, and imposed severe restraints upon all vicious and immoral practices. But after all these pious efforts, and salutary measures, which promised such fair prospects to the rising church, his son Sueno, or Swein, apostatized from the truth, and, during a certain time, involved the Christians in the deepest calamity and distress, and treated them with the greatest cruelty and injustice. This persecuting tyrant felt however in his turn the heavy strokes of adversity, which produced a salutary change in his conduct, and happily brought him to a better mind; for being driven from his kingdom, and obliged to seek his safety in a state of exile among the Scots, he embraced anew the religion he had abandoned, and upon his restoration to his dominions, exerted the most ardent and exemplary zeal in the cause of Christianity, which he endeavoured to promote to the utmost of his power.

VIII. It was in this century that the first dawn of the gospel arose upon the Norwegians, as we learn from the most authentic records. The conversion In Norway. of that people was attempted, in the year 933, by their monarch Hagen Adelsteen, who had been educated among the English, and who employed certain ecclesiastics of that nation to instruct his subjects in the doctrines of Christianity. But his pious efforts were rendered fruitless by the brutal obstinacy, with which the Norwegians persevered in their ancient prejudices, and the assiduity and zeal with which his successor Harold Graufeldt pursued

p Jo. Adolph. Cupræi Annales Episcopor. Slesvic, cap. xiii. p. 78. Adam Bremens. lib. ii. cap. xxvi, p. 22, cap. xliv. p. 28. Jo. Stephan. ad Saxonem Grammat. p 207. Molleri Introduct. ad Historiam Cheasones. Cimbric. pars ii. cap. iii. § 14.

q Saxon. Gramm. Histor. Dan. lib. x. p. 186, Pontoppidan, De gestis et vestigiis Danorum extra Daniam, tom. ii, cap. i.§ 1, 2.

the same plan of reformation, were also without effect.' The succeeding princes, far from being discouraged by these obstacles, persisted firmly in their worthy purpose, and Haco, among others, yielding to the entreaties of Harald, king of Denmark, to whom he was indebted for the Norwegian crown, embraced, himself, the Christian religion, and recommended it, with the greatest fervour, to his subjects in an assembly of the people that was held in the year 945. This recommendation, notwithstanding the solemnity and zeal with which it was accompanied, made little impression upon the minds of this fierce and barbarous people; nor were they entirely gained over by the zealous endeavours of Olaus to convert them to Christianity, though the pious diligence of that prince, which procured him the honour of saintship, was not altogether without effect. But that which gave the finishing stroke to the conversion of the Norwegians, was their subjection to Suenon, or Swein, king of Sweden, who having defeated their monarch Olaus Tryggueson, became master of Norway, and obliged its inhabitants to abandon the gods of their ancestors, and to embrace universally the religion of Jesus." Among the various doctors, that were sent to instruct this barbarous people, the most eminent, both in merit and authority, was Guthebald, an English priest." From Norway, Christianity spread its salutary light through the adjacent countries, and was preached with success in the Orkney islands, which were at this time subject to the Norwegian kings, and also in Iceland and Old

.

r Eric. Pontoppidan, Annales Eccles: Danica diplomat. tom: i. p. 66.

s Torm, Torfrei Historia Norwegica, tom. ii. p. 183, 214.

t Torfæus, l. c. p. 457.

Pu Dr. Mosheim attributes here to Swein the honour which is due to his predecessor Olaus Tryggueson; if it can be esteemed an honour to have promoted a rational and divine religion by compulsion and violence, by fire and sword. Olaus, who had abjured Paganism in England, during his youth, in consequence of a warm and pathetic discourse which he had heard from a British priest, returned to Norway with a firm resolution to propagate Christianity throughout his dominions. For this purpose he travelled from one province to another, attended by a chosen band of soldiers, and sword in hand performed the functions of missionary and apostle. His ministry, thus enforced, was followed with the desired success throughout all the provinces, except that of Drontheim, which rose in rebellion against him, and attacked Christianity with the same kind of arguments that Olaus employed in establishing it. This opposition occasioned several bloody battles, which ended, however, in the defeat of the rebels, and of the god Thor, their tutelar deity, whose statue Olaus dragged from its place, and burnt publicly in the sight of his worshippers, This event dejected the courage of the inhabitants of Drontheim, who submitted to the religion and laws of their conqueror. And thus, before the reign of Suenon, at least before the defeat of Olaus by that prince, Norway was Christian. See The History of Denmark, lately published in French by Mr. Mallet, professor in Belles Lettres at Copenhagen, vol. i. p. 52, 53.

w Chron. Danicum a Ludewigio editum in Reliquiis MS. torum, tom. ix. p. 11, 16, 17.

Groenland; for it is evident from many circumstances and records of undoubted authority that the greatest part of the inhabitants of these countries had received the gospel in this century.

Great

The zeal of

to the Great

in the cause of

IX. In Germany the pious exploits of Otho the contributed, in a signal manner, to promote the interest of Christianity, and to fix and establish it upon solid foundations throughout the empire. This truly great prince, whose pious magnanimity clothed him with a lustre infinitely superior to that which he derived from his imperial dignity, was constantly employed in extirpating the remains of the ancient superstitions, and in supporting and confirming the infant church, which in several provinces had not yet arrived to any considerable degree of consistence and vigour. That there might be rulers and pastors to govern the church, and to contribute both by their doctrine and example to the reformation and improvement of an unpolished and illiterate people, he established bishops in several places, and generously erected and endowed the bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg, Meissen, Magdeburg, and Naumburg; by which excellent establishments the church was furnished with eminent doctors from various parts, whose instructions were the occasion of raising up new labourers in the gospel harvest, and of thus multiplying the ministers of Christ from time to time. It was also through the munificence of the same prince, that many convents were erected for those who, in conformity with the false piety of the times, chose to finish their Christian course in the indolent sanctity of a solitary life, and it was by his express order that schools were established in almost every city for the education of the youth. All this may serve to show us the generosity and zeal of this illustrious emperor, whose merit would have surpassed the highest encomiums, had his prudence and moderation been equal to the fervour of his piety, and the uprightness of his intentions. But the superstition of his empress,' and the de

x Concerning the conversion of the inhabitants of the Orkneys, sec Torm. Trofai Historia Rerum Orkadens, lib. i. p. 22, and for an account of the Icelanders, the reader may consult Arngrim. Jonas's Cynogee, lib. i, and Arius Mullis. in Schedis Islandiæ; as also Torfæus, in his Histor. Norveg. tom. ii. p. 378, 379, 417, and Gabriel Liron's Singu larites Historiques et Literaires, tom. i. p. 138. The same Torfæns gives a full account of the introduction of Christianity into Groenland, in his Histor. Norveg. tom. ii. p. 374, and also in his Groenlandia Antiqua, c. xvii. p. 127.

y See the life of this empress, whose name was Adelaid, in the Lectionis Antique of Henry Canisius, tom. iii. pars i. p. 69. 11

VOL. II.

The plan of a holy war formed in this century.

plorable ignorance of the times, deluded this good prince into the notion, that he obliged the Deity in proportion as he loaded the clergy with riches and honours, and that nothing was more proper to draw down upon him the divine protection, than the exercise of a boundless liberality to his ministers. In consequence of this idle and extravagant fancy, Otho opened the sources of his opulence, which flowed into the church like an overgrown torrent, so that the bishops, monks, and religious houses wallowed in wealth and abundance. But succeeding ages perceived the unhappy effects of this excessive and illjudged munificence; when the sacred orders employed this opulence, which they had acquired without either merit or labour, in gratifying their passions, in waging war against all who opposed their ambitious pretensions, and in purchasing the various pleasures of a luxurious and effeminate life. x. It was no doubtful mark of the progress and strength of the Christian cause, that the European kings and princes began so early as this century to form the project of a holy war against the Mahometans, who were masters of Palestine. They considered it as an intolerable reproach upon Christians, that the very land in which the divine Author of their religion had received his birth, exercised his ministry, and made expiation for the sins of mortals, should be abandoned to the enemies of the Christian name. They also looked upon it as highly just, and suitable to the majesty of the Christian religion, to avenge the calamities and injuries, the persecution and reproach, which its professors had suffered under the Mahometan yoke. The bloody signal was accordingly given toward the conclusion of this century, by the Roman pontiff, Silvester II. and that in the first year of his pontificate. And this signal was an epistle, wrote in the name of the church of Jerusalem to the church universal throughout the world,' in which the European powers are solemnly exhorted and entreated to succour and deliver the Christians in Palestine. The exhortations of the pontiff were however without effect, except upon the inhabitants of Pisa, who are said to have obeyed the papal summons with the utmost alacrity, and to have prepared themselves immediately for a holy campaign."

z This is the xxviiith epistle in the first part of the collection of the letters of Silvester II. that is published by Du Chesne, in the third volume of his Scriptor. Histor. a See Muratori Scriptores rerum Italicarum, tom, iii. p. 400.

Franc.

CHAPTER II.

CONCERNING THE CALAMITOUS EVENTS THAT HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH DURING THIS CENTURY.

The progress

of the Turks

I. THE Christian religion suffered less in this century from the cruelty of its enemies, than from the defection of its friends. Of all the pagan monarchs, pres under whose government the Christians lived, and Saracens. none behaved to them in a hostile manner, nor tormented them with the execution of compulsive edicts or penal laws, except Gormon and Swein, kings of Denmark. Notwithstanding this, their affairs were far from being either in a fixed or flourishing state; nay, their situation was full of uncertainty and peril, both in the eastern and western provinces. The Saracens in Asia and Africa, amidst the intestine divisions under which they groaned, and the calamites that overwhelmed them from different quarters, were extremely assiduous in propagating every where the doctrines of Mahomet, nor were their efforts unsuccessful. Multitudes of Christians fell into their snares; and the Turks, a valiant and fierce nation, who inhabited the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, received their doctrine. The uniformity of religion did not however produce a solid union of interest between the Turks and Saracens; on the contrary, their dissensions and quarrels were never more violent, than from the time that Mahomet became their common chief in religious matters. The succours of the former were implored by the Persians, whose country was a prey to the ambitious usurpations of the latter, and these succours were granted with the utmost alacrity and readiness. The Turks accordingly fell upon the Saracens in a furious manner, drove them out of the whole extent of the Persian territories, and afterward, with incredible rapidity and success, invaded, seized, and plundered the other provinces that belonged to that people, whose desolation, in reality, came on like a whirlwind. Thus the powerful empire of the Saracens, which its enemies had for so many years attempted in vain to overturn, fell at last by the hands of its allies and friends. The Turks accomplished what the Greeks and Romans ineffectually aimed at; they struck suddenly that dreadful blow which ruined at once the affairs of the Saracens in Persia, and then deprived them, by