EUROPE
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EUROPE
by the pope, and the new empire rested essentially on
the basis of an alliance with the Church. Its ideal
was the Kingdom of God on earth, in which the em-
peror by Divine appointment is God's viceroy in order
to lead and rule all races as divided into nations,
classes, and distinctions of rank according to Divine
will.
Pepin the Short had been filled with this lofty con- ception; consequently extraordinary success attended the missionary labours of the Church under both rulers. As early as 716, under the rule of Charles Martel, the Anglo-Saxon monk Winfrid, better known as Boniface, landed on the Continent; he was to be the reformer and organizer of German ecclesiastical life. He always laboured in union with Rome, and was himself a missionary in Frisia with Willibrord, then, in 722, in Hesse and Thuringia, and in 736 in Ba- varia. Having been made an archbishop and having received authority from Rome, he founded a number of monasteries, e. g. that of Fulda, and the Bishop- rics of Eichstatt, Wiirzburg, Buraburg, and Erfurt. By means of synods held every five years he brought about the closer union between the old and new dioceses, and placed the newly fountled sees in Thu- ringia and Hesse, as well as those of Speyer, Worms, Cologne, Utrecht, Tongern, Augsburg, Chur, Con- stance, and Strasburg, under Mainz as metropolitan see, of which he became archbishop in 746. In the reign of Charlemagne the large territories of the Sax- ons and Avars were added to the lands thus organized, and these new regions also received missionaries and bishops. The result was the founding of the Di- oceses of Bremen (787), Padcrborn (S06), Werden, and Minden in the country of the Engern, Osnabriick and Miinster (785) in Westphalia, Halberstadt and Hildes- heim (817) in Eastphalia; the metropolitan of all the Saxon sees was Bremen (834). The conversion of the Avars had been attempted by the Bavarian Duke Tassilo II; when the East Mark was founded the Avars came under the influence of the sees and monas- teries established in this country; after their sul> jugation they were placed partly under the jurisdic- tion of the Bishop of Salzburg and partly under that of the Patriarch of Aquileia.
From these points, Christianity, as formerly in the Roman Empire, extended beyond the boundaries of Charlemagne's dominions, and new tribes and peoples were evangelized, while, at the same time. Christian civilization was peacefully established within the Frankish Empire. The monastery of Corvey on the Weser, and the Sees of Bremen and Hamburg (831) were the mission centres for the northern provinces. The monk Anschar of Corvey, first Archbishop of Hamljurg, laboured with great zeal as Apostolic legate in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; his successors were equally active as missionaries and bishops. However it was not until the reign of Canute the Great (1014-3.5) that the victory of Christianity in Denmark was assured; in 1104 Lund was made the metropolitan See of Scandinavia; in 1163 Upsala became the metro- politan See of Sweden, and about the mid<lle of the twelfth century Trondhjem was made the same for Norway. Iceland was won for Christianity about the year 1000 and was divided into the two sees of Skal- hold and Holura. The inhabitants of the Orkneys, Hebrides, Faroe, and Shetland Islands were converted about the same time as Iceland; they were at first placed under the metropolitan See of Hamburg- Bremen, which ha<l been united in 849, and later under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan See of Norway.
During the period of the Teutonic migrations the Slavs had come into contact with Christianity and were converted partly by Christian rulers, as in Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, an<l Dalmatia, partly through the influence of neighbouring Christian coun- tries, as in Carinthia. In 806 the Bishop of Passau
undertook the conversion of Moravia; that of Pan-
nonia was attempted by Archbishop Adalram of Salz-
burg (821-36). In both these countries a great mis-
sionary work was done by Cyril and Methodius; the
latter, Methodius, became Archbishop of Moravia and
Parmonia. The work of converting Bohemia began in
the year 845; the country was at first under the care of
Ratisbon; in 973 a diocese was founded in Bohemia
itself at Prague, which was suffragan to Mainz. Po-
land was brought to Christianity by its ruler Duke
Mieczyslaw (963), and in 968 he erected the Bishopric
of Posen. In the year 1000 Gnesen was made a met-
ropolitan see, its suffragan sees were Kolberg (1065),
Breslau (1000), and Cracow (1000). Finally, in the
reigns of Heinrich I and Otto I the northern Slavs,
living in regions subsequently German, namely the
Wends, including those living in Pomerania, as well as
the Obotrites and Sorbs on the Oder, Vistula, and
Elbe, in Lausitz, and Saxony were forcibly Chris-
tianized. The new Sees of Havelberg, Brandenburg,
Meissen, Zeitz, Merseburg, and Oldenburg (Stargard)
served as points from which the work of conversion
could be carried on; Magdeburg was the centre of the
entire Slavonic mission.
It was during this same period that the Greek Church spread through the eastern part of Europe. In 955 the first Christian princess of Russia, Olga, was baptized at Constantinople; during the reign of her grandson Vladimir, baptized 989, Christianity became the religion of the country. In 864 the Bulgars, at the command of their prince Bogoris, accepted Christian- ity as a people, and from 870 were under the eccle- siastical control of Constantinople. A bishop sent from Constantinople introduced Christianity among the Magyars, or Hungarians; the work was completed by German missionaries sent in pursuance of the masterful policy of the Saxon emperors. The first Christian ruler of Hungary was Stephen (997-1038).
Many sacrifices, however, were still necessary in order to keep what had been gained for Christianity and to protect these gains against the threatened dan- gers of Mohammedanism and heathenism. "These sacrifices were freely made by medieval Christian Europe. Under the careful training of their ap- pointed guardians, the Catholic orders, the various nations and their rulers were filled with Christian thoughts and feelings. Although the conception of their respective positions held by the human repre- sentatives of the secular and spiritual power inevi- tably led to friction, especially in the age of the Hohen- staufen emperors, nevertheless all were conscious of their common duty to protect faith and civilization against foes both in Europe and outside of it. A con- vincing proof of this was the courageous struggle of Europe against the attempted inroads of Islam, and especially the expeditions of conquest to the Holy Land repeatedly undertaken by the various nations of Europe acting together. Spain, which since 711 had been almost entirely under the control of the .\rabs, was able in 1212 to drive them as far back as Granada; in 1402 Granada also fell. From 878 Sicily had been in the hands of the Saracens, but it was freed by tlie courageous Normans (1061-91). The so- c;illecl Crusades (1061-1244) continued with interrup- tions for nearly two hundred years; among those who shared in them were monks, as Peter of Amiens and St. Bernard; bi.shops, as Otto of Freising; rulers of the greatest nations of Western Europe, as the German emperors, Frederick Barbarossa an<l Frederick II; the French kings, St. Louis and Philip II, and the En- glish Richard the Lion-Hearted. Orders of knights, as the Order of St. John, were formed to take part in these expeditions. The original aim of the Crusades, the freeing of Palestine from the control of non-Chris- tians, it is true, was not attained. But the power of Mohammeilanism was weakened for a long time to come; the civilization of Western Europe, moreover,
