The Chronicle of the Slavs

written by the venerable

priest Helmold

The First Book

Preface

To the reverend lords and fathers, canons of the holy church at Lubeck, Helmold, unworthy servant of the church which is in Bosau, voluntarily acknowledges the obedience he owes. I have meditated long over what work I might undertake with which to render my mother, the holy church at Lubeck, some honor for my curacy. Nothing more fitting came to mind than

that I should write in her praise of the conversion of the Slavic race, that is to say, of the kings and preachers by whose assiduity the Christian religion was first planted in these parts and afterwards restored. In this endeavor the worthy-to-be-imitated devotion of writers who lived before us encouraged me. Because of their reatreat desire to write, very many of them forsook all the stir of worldly affairs that in a retired leisure given to contemplation they might find the way of wisdom, preferring that to fine gold and every kind of rich treasure. In extending their keen talents to the invisible things of God and in seeking to fathom even the mysteries, some often strove beyond their powers. Others, however, whose strivings were not so ambitious, stayed within the boundaries of their dispositions and out of their simplicity added to the treasures hidden in letters. They set forth many things about kings and prophets and the manifold issues of wars from the very beginning of the world, bestowing praise upon the virtuous, execration upon the wicked in their writings. In the dark haze of this world everything would be hidden if the light of letters failed. Blameworthy, therefore, is the arrogance of the moderns who, though they behold now as of old many things proceeding from the depths of the judgments of God, have closed up the veins of their eloquence and turned away to the wanton vanities of this life. I think, indeed, that the pages of this work ought to be dedicated to the praise of those who at different times by deed, word, often even by the shedding of their blood, enlightened the country of the Slavs. Their glory may not be passed over in silence for, after the destruction of the church at Oldenburg, they by the Lord’s favor brought the renowned city of Lubeck to so honorable an eminence that it excelled all the most celebrated cities of the Slavs both in material opulence and in divine religion. Some of the deeds done in our lifetime I have, indeed, passed over. That, however, which I have learned from the sayings of aged men or have come to know through observation I have resolved with the Lord’s help to recount faithfully and as fully, naturally, as the importance of the happenings in our times has provided abundant material to chronicle. In this task I have been urged on, not by temerity but by the persuasion of my teacher, the venerable bishop Gerold, who first of all made the church at Lubeck distinguished both in its see and in its clergy.

Here Begins the First Book

1. The Division of the Slavs

I judge it worth while at the beginning of this record to set forth in an historical survey something about the provinces, the character, and the customs of the Slavs, to see, namely, in how great a web of error they were entangled before their conversion, so that from the seriousness of their plight the efficacy of the divine cure may the more easily be discerned. Now there are many tribes of Slavs living on the shore of the Baltic Sea. A bight [1] of this sea stretches from the western ocean [2] toward the east. It is called the Baltic because, after the manner of a baldric, it extends in a long sweep through the Scythian regions even to Greece. It is also named the Barbarian Sea or Scythian Lake from the barbarous peoples whose lands it washes. Many nations are seated about this sea. The Danes and the Swedes, whom we call Northmen, occupy the northern coast and all the islands it contains. Along the southern shore dwell the Slavic nations of whom, reckoning from the east, the Russians are the first, then the Poles who on the north have the Prussians, on the south the Bohemians and those who are called Moravians and the Carinthians and the Sorbs. [3] But if one counts Hungary as a part of Slavania, as some would because it is different neither in customs nor in language, the compass of the Slavic tongue becomes so great that it nearly beggars estimation.

With the exception of the Prussians all these nations are honored by the name of Christian. It is a long time since Russia received the faith. By the Danes, Russia [4] is also called Ostrogard

because, situated in the east, it abounds in all good things. It is known, too, as Chunigard because the Huns are supposed first to have been there. Its chief city is Kiev. By what teachers the Russians came to the faith, I have not the least knowledge, except that in all their observances they appear to imitate the Greeks rather than the Latins. For a short [passage] over the Russian Sea brings one into Greece. Although the Prussians do not yet know the light of the faith, [they are, nevertheless] men endowed with many natural gifts. Most humane toward those in need, they even go out to meet and to help those who are in danger on the sea or who are attacked by pirates. Gold and silver they hold in very slight esteem. They have an abundance of strange furs, the odor of which has inoculated our world with the deadly poison of pride; but these, indeed, they regard as dung, to our condemnation, I believe, for we hanker after a marten-skin robe as much as for supreme happiness. Therefore, they offer their very precious marten furs for the woolen garments which we call faldones. Many praiseworthy things could be said about this people with respect to their morals, if only they had the faith of Christ whose missionaries they cruelly persecute. [5] At their hands Adalbert, the illustrious bishop of Bohemia, received the crown of martyrdom.

Although they share everything else with our people they prohibit only, to this very day, access to their groves and springs which, they aver, are polluted by the entry of Christians. They take the meat of their draft animals for food and use their milk and blood as drink so freely that they are said to become intoxicated. These men have blue eyes, ruddy faces, and long hair. Living, moreover, in inaccessible swamps they will not endure a master among them.

The Hungarian nation was once most powerful, vigorous at arms, and very terrifying even to the Roman Empire. Now, after the overthrow of the Huns and of the Danes, a third incursion took place, that of the Hungarians who wasted and ravaged all the border kingdoms. With the immense host which they had assembled they took forcible possession of all Bavaria and Swabia, devastated, besides, the country lying along the Rhine, and visited Saxony, even to the British Ocean, with fire and slaughter. With what great efforts on the part of the emperors and losses on the part of the Christian army they were undone and brought into subjection to the divine laws, many know and history sets forth.

The Carinthians are neighbors of the Bavarians. They are men diligent in their religious practices. There is not a nation more honorable or more pious in the worship of God and in its reverence of priests.

Bohemia has a king and men who are warlike, abounds in churches, and is rich in the divine religion. It is divided into two dioceses, Prague and Olmiitz.

Poland is a large province of the Slavs and coterminous, they say, with the kingdom of Russia. It is divided into eight dioceses. At one time it had a king, but now dukes govern it and, like Bohemia, it is tributary to his imperial majesty. The Poles and Bohemians use the same kinds of weapons and observe the same customs in warfare. As often as they are called into wars foreign to them they prove, indeed, brave in conflict, but exceedingly hard-hearted in rapine and murder. They spare neither monasteries, nor churches, nor cemeteries. But they do not for any reason implicate themselves in foreign wars except under the express condition that the treasure, which the protection afforded by sacred places should keep safe, is declared subject to pillage. It even happens, therefore, that because of their eagerness to get booty they often illtreat their best friends as they would the enemy. For this reason they are very seldom summoned, no matter what are the straits of the wars. Let these remarks about the Bohemians and the Poles and the other eastern Slavs suffice.

[1] From this point to the end of the chapter Helmold depends much on Adam of Bremen

for his information and also expressions. Cf. Adam, i, 7 (8); ii, 19-22 (16-19); iv, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18; schol. 14 (15), 116 (115), 120 (116). Helmold, however, amplifies Adam’s account by locating more definitely the seats of the Prussians, Bohemians, Moravians, Carinthians, and Sorbs with respect to the Poles and by supplying the data about the Hungarians. For Helmold’s modifications vide Regel, Helmold und seine Quellen, pp. 9-11. Adam in turn depends on the Translatio S. Alexandri and Einhard’s Vita Karoli, chap. 12. Livy and Tacitus are also reflected, respectively, in the opening lines of the chapter and in the description of Prussian regard for springs and groves. On the derivation of the name Baltic, and on Adam’s conception of the geography of this sea vide Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, II, 529 sqq.; Kretschmer, Historische Geographie von Mitteleuropa, pp. 128-30.

[2] The North Sea, also called the British Ocean. Kretschmer, op. cit., p. 129.

[3] According to Peisker, Cambridge Medieval History, II, 437, the Avar tore the North-Carpathian Serbs apart, transplanting some into the Balkans, Serbia and Montenegro, and others into the Elbe-Saale country. The latter were subject to Samo in the seventh century and usually were allied with the Abodrites against the Saxons and Wilzi in Charles the Great’s time. The Saxon emperors maintained a firm hold on the Sorb country because of its strategic position on the German frontier. Lesser groups included with the Sorbs were the Lusizi, Milzi, Glomuzani or Daleminzi, Siusli, and Plisni. Cf. Wendt, Germanisierung, I, 12-13; Thompson, op. cit., pp. 462 n. 4, 531.

[4] The scholium, 120 (116), which Helmold copies, is evidently not of Adam’s composition for it contradicts his text; thus, Ostrogard refers to Russia in the scholium, to a city, identified with Novgorod on the Wolchow River or with Ostrov above Pskov, in the text; ii, 22 (19); iv, 11.

[5] Their protomartyr was a Czech who changed his name from Woitech to Adalbert at Magdeburg where he was educated. Under Otto II he was bishop of Prague, later archbishop of Gniezno. The Prussians put him to death at Konigsberg (April 23, 997). Cf. chap. 15, infra. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, III, 245-51.

2. The City of Jumne [1]

Where Poland ends one comes into a most extensive Slavic province, that of the people who of old were called Wandali, but now Winithi or Winuli. [2] Of these people the first are the Pomeranians, whose settlements extend as far as the Oder. The Oder, the largest stream in the Slavic regions, rises in the depth sof the forest of the Moravians who live in eastern Bohemia, where the Elbe also has its source. Although not at a great distance from each other, these rivers are very different in their flow. The Elbe, rushing toward the west, waters in its upper most course the country of the Bohemians and the Sorbs; in its middle course it separates the Slavs from the Saxons; in its lower-most it divides the diocese of Hamburg from that of Bremen and then sweeps like a victor into the British Ocean. The other river—that is, the Oder—tending toward the north passes through the territory of the Winuli peoples, dividing the Pomeranians from the Wilzi. [3] At its mouth, where its waters swell those of the Baltic Sea, there once stood Jumne, a most noble city and widely known as a trading center for the barbarians and Greeks who lived about it. [4] Because great and scarcely credible things are told in praise of this city, I shall note some facts about it which are worth relating. It was truly the largest of all the cities of Europe, and there lived in it Slavs and a mixed population of other peoples, Greeks and barbarians. Alien Saxons also received the right to live there on equal terms with the others, provided only that during their sojourn they did not openly profess the Christian faith. Until that city was destroyed, its inhabitants blundered about in pagan rites. Otherwise, so far as morals and hospitality were concerned, a more honorable or kindlier folk could not be found. Rich in the wares of all nations, Jumne lacked nothing that was either charming or rare. This most opulent city a king of the Danes is said to have encompassed with a very large fleet and destroyed to its very foundations. Remains of the old town are still to be seen. There Neptune may be observed in a threefold mood: the island is washed by the waters of three straits, one of which they say is of a very green appearance; another, whitish [5] while the third rages furiously in perpetual tempests.

Other Slavic peoples there are, also, who live between the Oder and the Elbe and in a great bend stretching southward. Among them are the Heruli, or Heveldi, [5] who live along the

Havel and the Dosse rivers, the Leubuzi [6] and Wilini, [7] the Stoderani, [8] and many others. Then, beyond the sluggish current of the Oder and the territory peopled by the several Pomeranian tribes, there lies toward the west the country of the Winuli, of those, namely, who are called Tholenzi and Redarii. [9] Their town is the very widely known Rethra, [10] a seat of idolatry, where a great temple had been erected to the demons, the chief of whom is Redigast. His image is ornamented with gold, [11] his bed bedecked with purple. The fortified center of this town has nine gates and is safeguarded on all sides by a deep lake. A wooden bridge, over which the way is open only to those who would make sacrifices or seek oracular advice, affords a means of crossing. Next, one comes to the Circipani [12] and Kicini whom the Peene River and the town of Demmin separate from the Tholenzi and Redarii. The Kicini, [13] and Circipani live on this side [14] of the Peene, the Tholenzi and Redarii, on the other. Because of their bravery these four peoples are called Wilzi, or Lutici. Beyond them are the Linguones [15] and Warnavi. [16] Next come the Abodrites, [17] whose town is Mecklenburg. Next, in our direction, are the Polabi, [18] whose town is Ratzeburg. On crossing the river Trave, then, one comes into our province of Wagria. [19] Its city was once Oldenburg by the sea. There are also in the Baltic Sea, islands that are inhabited by Slavs. One of these islands, called Fehmern, is opposite the Wagiri and so near that it may be seen from Oldenburg. Another and far greater island is situated opposite the Wilzi and is inhabited by the Rani, also known as the Rugiani, [20] the strongest of the Slavic peoples and the only one having a king. So much are the Rani feared on account of their familiarity with the gods, or rather demons, whom they honor with a greater devotion than do the other Slavs, that nothing can lawfully be done in public matters without their sanction. These, then, are the peoples of the Winuli who are spread over these regions and provinces and islands of the sea. This whole race of men is given to idolatry, is always restless and moving about, making piratical raids upon its enemies, the Danes on one side and the Saxons on the other. Very often, therefore, and in many ways have great emperors and priests ingeniously tried somehow to bring this stiff-necked and unbelieving people [21] to a knowledge of God’s name and to the grace of the faith.

[1] In this chapter Helmold draws on Adam, ii, 21-22 (18-19); iv, 18, 20; schol.14 (15), (17) 1 56 (57), 121 (117), but supplies “Winithi” as an alternative name for “Wandali,” notes the location of the Moravian Forest, records that Jumne “was” the largestof all European cities, that it was rich in the wares of “all,” not simply of “all the northernnations” and that “until it was destroyed” its inhabitants adhered to paganism.

[2] Helmold, following Adam, erroneously identifies the Wandali with the Winithi orWinuli as Slavs. Schmeidler notes (Adam, p. 76 nn. 1, 2) that the Lombards had been called Winuli or Winili by Paul the Deacon. Winithi may be an older form of the now current word, Wend. Possibly a remnant of the Lombards or Vandals was Slavised [Slavicized].

[3] The Wilzi were in Helmold’s time a federation composed of the Circipani, Kicini,Tholenzi, and Redarii. The name of the federation changed from time to time. Einhard in his Vita Karoli (chap. 12) and Annales {an. 789) calls them “Welatabi” which, if Zeuss (Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme, pp. 655 n. I, 679) is right in his conjecture, may relate the Wilzi with the Οὔελεται of Ptolemy and so indicate the connection of these Baltic Slavs with Slavs in Thrace. In Helmold’s age the Wilzi were also known as the Lutici, a name which Schmeidler {(Adam, p. 77 n. 11), thinks is suggestive of the Slavic stem ljut, meaning fierce, wild. Charles the Great knew the Wilzi as allies of the Saxons and the sworn foes of his friends, the Abodrites. When the Saxons yielded to the Franks and accepted Christianity the Wilzi became their enemies and, as will appear, were responsible for many a Slavic uprising.

[4] This city also called Jumna, Jumneta, and Vineta, is the modern Wollin, a name derived from the Vuloini, a Slavic tribe which once lived in the region. There is little reason to believe that Helmold exaggerates the metropolitan importance of Jumne. Certainly, its strategic position attracted the Danes when they became sufficiently consolidated as a people under Gorm the Old {ca. 860-935) t0 have a commercial policy—the taking possession of the mouths of the German rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea. Jumne was probably conquered (960) by Gorm’s successor, Harold Blue-Tooth (935-85), and committed to the keeping of the famous pirate brotherhood, the Jomsvikings. Cf. Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People, I, 170 and note; Thompson, Feudal Germany, pp. 534 n. 8, 535 n. 3; Kretschmer, Historische Geographie von Mitleleuropa, p. 125; Schmeidler (ed.), Adam. p. 79 n. 1.

[5] Adam and Helmold, confusing them with the German tribe of the migration period,Adam and Helmold, confusing them with the German tribe of the migration period, call them Heruli. The Heveldi evidently took their name from the River Havel; hence,the medieval “Land Havelberg” which in the fourteenth century was known as the Prignitz district. Kretschmer, op. cit., p. 337. In the Annals of Quedlinburg (an. 997) which Thietmar (iv, 29) follows, this region is called Stoderania. Here Helmold places the Brizani and Stoderani, chaps. 37, 89, infra. Adam does not mention the former and does not definitely locate the latter. The two names probably refer to two subdivisions ofthe Heveldi, like the Doxani, whom Helmold notes only indirectly through the river, the Dosse, along which they lived. The principal towns of the Heveldi were Havelberg andBrunabor. Henry the Fowler took the latter (928-29); today it lives in Brandenburg. Cf-Widukind, Rerum gesl. Sax., i, 35.

[6] They dwelt between the Elbe and the Oder. Schmeidler thinks they are to be identified with the inhabitants of Liabusua (Libusua) mentioned by Thietmar (i, 16; vi, 59; vii, 20) and located on the confines of Lausitz. Zeuss’ opinion to the contrary still has force (op. cit.,p. 653 and note).

[7] Adam mentions the Wilini but once as living with other Slavic tribes between the Elbe and the Oder, and this is Helmold’s only reference to them. There has been much dispute concerning their identity. Cf. Zeuss, op. cit., p. 653; Schmeidler (ed.), Adam,p. 78 n. 3.

[8] Vide note 5, supra.

[9] Vide note 3, supra.

[10] The location of Rethra was the subject of dispute until 1922 when Schuchhardt and Koldewey unearthed its urbs tricornis ac tres in se continens portas, as Thietmar (vi, 23) minutely describes it in his chronicle. Cf. Schmeidler, Hamburg-Bremen und nordostEuropa, pp. 34.1-58; Thompson, op. cit., pp. 388-91. The fane, which was in the keeping of the Redarii, was the scene of the suffering of many Christians, among them John of Mecklenburg. Vide chap. 33, infra.

[11] According to Thietmar (vi, 23) it was of wood, adorned with gold and carved with inscriptions.

[12] Their name is geographical: czres (czerez) for per or supra and Panis for the Peene River, north of which they lived. Schmeidler (Adam, p. 77 n. 6) gives them more definite boundaries, the Recknitz, Nebel, Trebel, and Ostpeene Rivers. Cf. Zeuss, op. cit., p. 657 n; n. 3, supra.

[13] Their principal towns were Wostrow on the Nebel, Wotenick near Demmin, andheir principal towns were Wostrow on the Nebel, Wotenick near Demmin, andKessin, from which they probably took their name, near the modern Rostock. Ulrici, Die Volker am Ostseebecken, p. 33; Zeuss, op. cit., p. 656; n. 3, supra.

[14] That is, Helmold’s side, Saxony, westward.

[15] The Linguones, also called Lini and Linoges, were probably kindred of the Abodrites and lived along the east bank of the Elbe north of its junction with the Havel in theregion of the modern Putlitz in Westprignitz. Earlier sources mention the Smeldingi, Bethenici, and Morizani as their neighbors but neither Adam nor Helmold notes them.Helmold copies his notice of the Linguones from Adam (ii, 21) but changes the sense of his source by interpolating scholium 16 (17) immediately before his remarks about them. Consequently, the Linguones lived, according to Helmold, ultra the Wilzi instead of ultra the Polabi. Adam, furthermore, specifies that they lived within the limits of the diocese of Hamburg, a fact which Helmold fails to state. Helmold mentions the Linguones but once more as living a quiet life in a fertile region where they were attacked without provocation by Mistue, the son of the Slavic prince, Henry, in 1112 (?). Vide chap. 37, infra.

[16] Kindred of the Abodrites, the Warnavi lived in the diocese of Hamburg on theWarnow River, possibly near a place called Warnow in the neighborhood of Grabow.

[17] The Abodrites or Obotriti lived in western Mecklenburg, but if their kindred—the Wagiri, Linguones, Warnavi, Dravani, and possibly the Brizani—are reckoned with them, they held the east bank of the Elbe from the Havel River nearly to Hamburg. Wendt, op. cit., I, 11; Kretschmer, op. cit., p. 171. From the Elbe their line ran due north to the Baltic Sea near Haddeby. They called their chief civitas Wiligrad, which the Germans translated into Magnopolis, Mecklenburg. Velu is the Slavic word for “great” and gradfor “town”; mikhil is Old High German for “great.” Beltz, Zur altesten Geschichte Mecklenburgs, pp. 17-18; Krek, Slavische Literaturgeschichte, p. 357 n. I. Besides Mecklenburg the Abodrites held Schwerin and Malchow and in Charles the Great’s time a trading poston the Baltic which the Danes called Reric. Einkardi annales, ann. 808, 809. Hence, Adam, ii, 21 (18); iii, 20 (19), also calls the Abodrites Reregi. The Abodrites had probably been driven into the Elbe country by the Huns in the fifth century or by the Avars in the sixth. There, on the German frontier, they were drawn into the Frankish wars with the Saxons. They fought with Charles the Great against the Saxons, but gave up the alliance under Louis the Pious because of his Danish policy. East of the Abodrites livedthe Wilzi with whom the Abodrites were always at war. Einhardi annales, an. 808. When Charles the Great deported the Saxons who lived between the Elbe and Weser rivers he let the Abodrites settle in Wagria, eastern Holstein, for in Wagria they could stand between the Danes and the Saxons. Charles the Great, however, found the Abodrites unequal to the commission and consequently erected a mark against the Danes. After Charles the Great Abodrite history is told by Helmold. Divided between a Christian and a pagan faction, caught between the Saxons and the Wilzi, they were little by little reduced; their country became the modern Mecklenburg, but not until the thirteenth century was the last ember of resistance trampled out and not until the Thirty Years’ War was the Slavic tongue stilled in this region. Thompson, op. cit., pp. 462 and n. 4, 504, 538, 567.

[18] The Polabi were also called Polabingi. Their name is derived from the Slavic po for “on” and Labe for “Elbe.” The term is used in a broad and in a narrow sense. Broadly, it includes the Abodrites, Wilzi, Sorbs, with all their sub-divisions and kindred, and Polabi. Their territory extends from the Elbe to the Oder and Bober, and from the Harz Mountains to the Baltic and the islands along the coast. Adam and Helmold use the term in the narrow sense, referring only to the people whose lands lay along the east bank of the Elbe from the Elde to the Bille and Trave Rivers and whose chief civitas was Ratzeburg. Their location in what is now Lauenburg, western Mecklenburg and Schonburg to Lubeck, exposed the Polabi to all the vicissitudes of the German-Slav wars. Kretschmer, op. cit., p. 357.

[19] Wagria, inhabited by the Wagiri, is roughly the same as the present East Holstein. Cf. chap. 12, infra.

[20] Peisker, Cambridge Medieval History, II, 456, considered their fierceness and skill

as pirates evidence of viking blood. In their keeping, too, was the temple of Svantowit,

the chief god of the Slavs. Cf. chap. 108, infra. In 1168 the Rugiani were conquered and the

temple at Arkona destroyed by Waldemar, king of Denmark. So thoroughly did the Dane

wreak vengeance upon an ancient and troublesome enemy that the whereabouts of the fane

was a subject of speculation until 1921 when Schuchhardt discovered what was left of it.

Petsch, “Die neuen Ausgrabungen auf Arkona,” Forschungen und Fortschritte, VI (Novem-

ber 10, 1930), 413-14; Thompson, op. cit., pp. 388, 391 n. 1.

[21] Cf. II Chron. 30:8; Acts 7: 51.

3. How Charles Converted the Saxons to the Faith

Of all the zealous propagators of the Christian religion who through the merit of their faith have won praiseworthy eminence, Charles shines out ever the most glorious, as a man to be extolled by every writer and to be placed in the front rank of those who labored for God in the northern parts. For by thesword he overcame the most fierce and rebellious Saxon folk and subjected it to the laws of Christendom. Now the Saxons, [1] as well as the Thuringians and the other peoples who dwell along the Rhine, are recorded from antiquity to have been tributary to the Franks. Since they afterwards lapsed from Frankish rule, Pepin, the father of Charles, made war on them, which war, however, his son prosecuted with greater success. The conflict with the Saxons was long drawn out. Waged with great animosity by both sides, with greater losses, however, to theS axons than to the Franks, it went on continuously for thirty-three years. It might, indeed, have been ended sooner but for the obstinacy [2] of the Saxons, who, preferring to preserve their liberty by force of arms, devastated the territories of the Franks even to the Rhine. Thus, with scarcely a year free from warfare, the Saxons are recorded to have become at length so exhausted that ten thousand of those who lived along both sides of the Elbe with their women and children were transported into Francia. The year in which this was done was the thirty-third of the long Saxon war, the thirty-seventh of the emperor Charles’s reign, and the historians of the Franks regard it as memorable because Widukind, the inciter of the rebellion, abdicated his tyranny, submitted to the Empire and with other leaders of the Saxons received baptism. [3] Then Saxony was finally made into a province. Although the most brave Charles had achieved this victory in war, he trusted not in himself but in the Lord God of hosts and attributed his mighty deeds to the assistance of His grace. He also, with great consideration and with thought of the supernal reward, determined to relieve the Saxon people, although they ill deserved it, of all the tribute they owed and to preserve to them their ancient freedom, lest perchance, overburdened with taxes and tribute, they be moved to rebel and relapse into the errors of paganism. These terms, moreover, were proposed by the king and accepted by the Saxon people—that they renounce their worship of devils, receive the sacraments of the Christian faith, become tributaries and subjects of the Lord God, offering the priests the lawful [tithe] of all their beasts and the fruits of the fields or crops, and that they become one people with the Franks to whom they had been joined. Saxony was, therefore, divided into eight dioceses and put under most worthy pastors [4] who would by word and example imbue the rude minds of her people with the faith. The Caesar, finally, provided most honorably for the support of these clerics with generous munificence. In this wise was the task of making a new plantation in Saxony accomplished and confirmed with full strength. The uncouth Frisians then also received the grace of the Christian faith and from that time the way was prepared across the Elbe for the preachers of the Word of God. They went out, swift messengers, to announce the gospel of peace throughout the length and breadth of the north. [5] As at that time the Slavic tribes were likewise subjected to the rule of the Franks, Charles is said to have committed Hamburg, the city of the Nordalbingians, to the governance of a certain saintly man, Heridag, whom he designated as bishop of the place. Further, he built a church there. [6] This same church at Hamburg he proposed to establish as the mother church of all the Slavic and Danish peoples. This project the emperor Charles was prevented from carrying out as perfectly as he desired by the death of Heridag, the priest, and by the wars with which he himself was occupied. For this most victorious prince, who had conquered all the kingdoms of Europe, is said to have undertaken last of all a war with the Danes. Now the Danes and the other peoples who live beyond Denmark are called Northmen by the historians of the Franks. After their king, Gottrik, had brought the Frisians and also the Nordalbingians, the Abodrites and other Slavic peoples under tribute, he threatened even Charles with war. This strife seriously retarded the emperor’s plan concerning Hamburg. When at length, by the dispensation of God, Gottrik died, there succeeded him Hemming, his cousin, who soon made peace with the emperor and recognized the Eider River as the boundary of the kingdom. [7]

Not long afterwards Charles departed this life, a man most upright in religious as well as secular affairs and the first to merit elevation from the kingship of the Franks to the imperial position. For the dignity of the Caesars [8] after Constantine was seated in Greece, to wit in the city of Constantinople, and for many generations enjoyed a praiseworthy existence. But with the lack there of men of royal stock, this high office visibly declined to the point where the government, for which in its primitive vigor three consuls at a time, or dictators, or even Caesars scarcely sufficed, passed at length under womanish rule. Since, therefore, rebels rose up on all sides against the Empire and since nearly all of the kingdoms of Europe fell away from its control and Rome herself, the mother of the world, was worn away by frontier wars and had no defender, it pleased the Apostolic See to convene a solemn council of saintly men and to enter into common consultation about the general need. Thus, by the consent of all and with the approval of all, Charles, the illustrious king of the Franks, was honored with the crown of the Roman Empire, because, by reason of what he had merited in respect of the faith and of the glory of his power no less than of the victories he had won in his wars, no one in the world seemed to be his equal. In this manner was the imperial title transferred from Greece to Francia.

[1] At this point Helmold again turns to Adam, i, 8 (9), 9 (10), 11 (12), 12 (13), 14 (15, 16), who himself is in debt to the Vita S. Willehadi, chaps. 5, 6, 8; Einhard’s Vita Karoli, chaps. 7, 14, and Annales, an. 778; and the Annales of Fulda, ann. 785,808-11.

[2] Adam, i, 8 (9), follows Einhard, Vita Karoli, chap. 7, in using perfidia, which Helmold changes to pertinacia and adds the clause, “preferring to preserve … of arms.”

[3] Widukind received baptism and apparently retired from the conflict in 785, not atthe end of the war in 804 or 805 as Helmold reckons.

[4] According to Adam, i, n (12), the archbishops of Mainz and Koln. Cf. Introd.

[5] Of these preachers the Northumbrian St. Willehad was the most prominent. After strenuous labors in Wigmodia near the North Sea, between the Elbe and the Weser, he was consecrated (787) bishop of Worms, but fixed his residence at Bremen where he built his cathedral in 789. The Vita S. Willehadi was written by a cleric of Bremen between 838 and 860. Cf. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, II, 318 sqq.

[6] Unlike the early history of the diocese of Bremen the beginnings of the church of Hamburg are until Ansgar’s time very uncertain. Cf. Hauck, op. cit., II, 620.

[7] Gottrik (also Gottfried, Godfrey) seems to have been king only in Jutland.

[8] For this passage on the Empire Helmold draws on the Vita S. Willehadi, chap. 5, in which, however, there is no reference to any action by the Holy See.

4. The Division of the Kingdom

After Charles, the king of the Franks and august emperor of the Romans, passed into heaven with the rich reward of good deeds, Louis, his son, succeeded him in the realm. He was thoroughly in accord with his father’s desires and exercised the same liberality toward the service of the house of God and all the clergy. So generously did he devote the vast wealth of his kingdom to the embellishment and glory of the Church, that he made bishops, who through their charge of souls are princes of heaven, princes also of the realm. When he learned what had been his father’s design with respect of Hamburg, he immediately took counsel [1] with wise men and caused that most saintly man, Ansgar, whom he had at one time directed to preach to the Danes and Swedes, [2] to be consecrated archbishop of the church of Hamburg. Louis established that city as the metropolis for all the northern peoples that the ministry of the Word of God might go forth with greater success among all the barbarous nations. And this did come to pass, for at the instance of the prelates of the church of Hamburg, the Word of God was spread among all the Slavic, Danish, and Northman peoples and the icy cold of the north was dissolved by the warmth of the Word of God. For many days and very many years the missionaries labored to their utmost among these peoples; but so deep was the darkness of their errors and so obstinate their rank idolatry that it could be neither promptly nor easily overcome. The many storms of the wars, which after the death of the most pious Louis spread

more widely, also retarded not a little the conversion of the pagans. When he was taken from this world, civil wars arose; namely, the quarrels among his four sons over the principate. Thus, there sprang up among the brothers much discord and a very great war in which, as the historians testify, all of the Frankish peoples were consumed. The dissensions were at length

allayed by the mediation of Pope Sergius [3] and the kingdom was divided into four parts in such wise that Lothar, the eldest, would possess Rome with Italy and Lotharingia with Burgundy; Ludwig, the Rhine with Germany; Charles, Gaul; Pepin, Aquitaine.

[1] Helmold makes use of Adam, i, 15 (17), 16 (18), 22 (24), who uses Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii, chap. 12, and the Annales Fuld., ann. 841, 843.

[2] He was selected to accompany Harold back to Denmark in 826, but little came of his mission at that time. His consecration as archbishop of Hamburg occurred in 831.

[3] Sergius II did not become pope until the year after the framing of this treaty at Verdun, 843.

5. The Mission of Saint Ansgar in Sweden

The situation at this time, when discord among the brothersgave rise to the tremendous commotion of warfare and weakened the divided empire, prompted many to feel that the time was opportune for revolt. Among the contentious the first or most important were the Danish people, superior in strength of men and arms. They subjected first the Slavs and the Frisians [1] to tribute; then coming up the Rhine with their pirate fleet they laid siege to Koln; and up the Elbe, totally destroyed Hamburg. The celebrated city and the newly built church all went up in flames; nay, even the province of the Nordalbingians and whatever lay near the river fell prey to the ravages of the barbarians. Saxony was shaken with a great terror. The saintly archbishop of Hamburg, Ansgar, and other preachers assigned to Slavia and to Denmark were driven from their seats by the high passion of the persecutors and were dispersed in every direction. Ludwig to whom, as we said above, Germany had been given and who throughout was like his glorious father, in name as well as in piety, planned in this wise to repair the loss of the church at Hamburg. The see of Bremen, which by the death of its bishop [2] was then vacant, was to be joined with that of Hamburg, making them thereafter not two dioceses, but one diocese. Since each of the cities was much in danger of piratical incursions, it was expedient that one be built up with the help of the other, and that the\’ support each other. When, therefore, confirmation of this proposal was received from the Apostolic See, everything which had been worked out in the mind of the pious prince was carried into effect. [3] The church of Bremen was united with that of Hamburg, the saintly Ansgar was given rule over both and there was “one fold and one shepherd. [4]

Not long after, when the fury of the Danes had abated somewhat, they began to rebuild the ruins of the city of Hamburg, and the Nordalbingian people returned to their own homes. Archbishop Ansgar also went often on embassies for the Caesar to the king of the Danes, with whom he pleaded zealously to the advantage of both realms and for the maintenance of peace. He won great favor and friendship with the king who, though pagan, had reverence for Ansgars faith. [The king] [5] even gave him permission to establish churches in Schleswig and Ribe and assured him in advance that no one would be allowed to interfere with those who desired to receive baptism and to observe the Christian laws. Without delay priests were directed to the accomplishment of this mission. As the riches of divine grace thus gradually increased in the Danish folk, the archbishop was moved by a great desire to rise up for the conversion of the Swedes. Before he proceeded upon this arduous mission he asked for a letter and a legate from the king of the Danes. Setting out with a large company, he came after a sea voyage to Bjorko, the principal city of Sweden. There he was received with much favor and joy by the faithful whom he himself had won for Christ on a mission to which he had at one time been assigned, before he was raised to the honors of the episcopate. He secured from the king [6] assurance that those who wished would be allowed freely to assume the Christian title. When he had established in Sweden a bishop and priests, who were in his stead to provide for religious service and for the salvation of the people, and had exhorted everyone to persevere in the faith, he returned to his own see. From that time on, the seed of the Word of God which had been scattered among the Danish and Swedish peoples began to bear richer fruit. Although among these same people there afterwards arose many tyrants, who visited their cruelty not only on their own Christian folk but also on foreign nations, Christianity, nevertheless, is known from the very beginning of its establishment in Denmark and Sweden to have grown so strong that even if at times it tottered in the driving storms of persecution, it never failed entirely. [7]

[1] In this chapter Helmold depends on the Vita Anskarii, chaps. 16, 17, 23-25, and on Adam, i, 21 (23), 25 (27), 26 (28), 29 (31), who in turn makes use of the Annales Fuld., ann. 836, 837. Cf.Ann. Bert., an. 837. Only Adam mentions this raid. Since the Annales Colonienses brevissimi and the Annales Bertiniani record the murder in Koln of some Danish emissaries in 836, it has been conjectured that this raid was an act of vengeance. Hamburg was destroyed in 845. Cf. Vogel, Die Normannen und das fraenkische Reich, p. 74 n. 4.

[2] Leuderic who died August 24, 845.

[3] Pope Nicholas I issued (May 31, 864) the bull which authorised the union of Hamburg and Bremen under Ansgar. Jaffe, Regesta poontificum (2d ed.), no. 2759. Regelt (Helmold und seine Quellen, pp. 18-22) proves that Helmold had seen only the part of this document which Rimbert includes in his Vita Anskarii, chap. 23. Concerning the troubles of Ansgar after the Northman raid of 845 and the controversy with the archbishop of Koe!n, the metropolitan of Bremen, over the union of Bremen with Hamburg vide Adam. i, 27 (29); Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, II, 624-26.

[4] John 10: 16.

[5] Eric I and all of the royal stock of the north except a boy, Eric II, perished in a revolution in 854. Eric II at first cruelly persecuted the Christians, but Ansgar won him over so that he favored his mission work. Adam, i, 28 (30), 29 (31).

[6] Olaph, or Oleph, whose identity it has not been possible to determine with certainty.

[7] Helmold disagrees with Adam. The latter writes that the Swedes forgot Christianity and went back to paganism and that the Danes retained but little of the faith which Ansgarhad preached. Cf. i, 52 (54), 61 (63).

6. The Conversion of the Rugiani

Of all the peoples of the northern nations, the country of the Slavs alone has remained more obdurate and slower of belief than the rest. Now there are, as was said before, many Slavic peoples of whom those who are called Winuli or Winithi belong for the most part to the diocese of Hamburg. For in addition to the honor of being the metropolitan see for all the nations and kingdoms of the north, the church at Hamburg has also, as a diocese, its own prescribed boundaries; embracing, namely, the remotest part of Saxony which lies across the Elbe and is called Nordalbingia. Within it dwell three peoples, the Ditmarshians, the Holzatians, and the Sturmarians. Thence the line is extended to include the Winithi, those who are called Wagiri,

Abodrites, Kicini, Circipani, and as far as the Peene River and the city of Demmin. There the diocese of Hamburg ends. [1] One cannot but wonder how those most worthy bishops and preachers of the Gospel, Ansgar, Rimbert, and the sixth in the succession, Unni, [2] whose great zeal for the conversion of the heathen is manifest, should have so far concealed their efforts in behalf of the Slavs that it could be said that neither they nor their ministers had achieved any success among them. This misapprehension was due, I think, to the invincible obstinacy of the people and not to the torpor of the preachers, whose souls were so imbued with the conversion of the heathen that they spared neither their strength nor their lives. For a record [3] of great antiquity tells how in the time of Ludwig II there went out from Corvey monks remarkable for their sanctity who in their thirst for the salvation of the Slavs exposed themselves to dangers and death for the sake of making known the Word of God. After

wandering through many of the Slavic provinces, they came to the people called the Rani, or Rugiani, who dwell in the midst of the sea. With them error was at home and idolatry had its

throne. Full of confidence, however, these missionaries preached the Word of God and won over the whole island. They also founded there an oratory in honor of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and in commemoration of Saint Vitus, who is the patron of Corvey. God afterwards permitted affairs to change. The Rani fell away from the faith, forthwith drove out the priests

and worshipers of Christ, and turned religion into superstition. Putting a creature above the Creator, they worship as God, Saint Vitus, whom we recognize as a martyr and servant of Christ. [4] Not a barbaric state under heaven abominates Christians and priests more. They glory only in the name of Saint Vitus, to whom they have with the most elaborate rites even dedicated a temple and an image, attributing to him in particular a primacy of divinity. Oracular responses are there sought also by all the provinces of the Slavs and annual sacrifices duly performed. Even merchants who happen to come into these parts are not given leave either to buy or to sell until there has been laid before the god of the Rani whatever is most valuable in their merchandise. Then only may the merchants expose their goods in the market place. The Rani revere their flamen not less than they do their king. From the time when first they renounced the faith to this very day the Rani have persisted in this superstition.

[1] To this point Helmold depends on Adam, ii, 17 (15), 21 (18); iv, 13. Pope Clement II in 1047 attributed the same boundaries to this diocese. Schmeidler (ed.), Adam, p. 72 n. 5.

[2] Helmold properly changes the text of Adam, who includes the bishops of Bremen before Ansgar in his list of the archbishops of Hamburg and so makes Unni the ninth prelate of the see. With Unni there came about a religious renaissance in Hamburg and In its northern missions. Conrad I set aside the election a clero et populo of another to make Unni archbishop (917). Unni zealously promoted the Danish missions and, though he could not tame the ferocious anti-Christian, Gorm the Old, at least won the neutrality of his son, Harold Blue-Tooth. From Denmark Unni passed into Sweden, neglected since Ansgar’s time, and died at Bjorko, September 17, 936. Adam, i, 54-62 (56-64); Hauck, Kirchengeschickte Deutschlands, III, 80 sqq.; Regel, Helmold und seine Quellen, p. 16.

[3] Wilmans, Die Kaiserurkunden der Provinz Westfalen, I, 94-113. The monastery of Corvey in Westphalia was founded (815) by monks of the monastery of Corbie in Picardy.

[4] On the credibility of this story vide Schildgen, “St. Vitus und der slavische Swantowit in ihrer Beziehung zu einander,” Programm der Realschule zu Munster, 1881; Krek, Slavische Literaturgeschichte, pp. 396-402; Thompson, Feudal Germany, p. 449 n. 2 (bibliography). Helmold returns to this god, chaps. 52, 108, infra. His shrine was at Arkona on the island of Rugen.

7. The Persecution of the Northmen

The work of imbuing the Slavic peoples and other heathens with the faith was in truth from the very beginning seriously interfered with by that tempest of wars which the turbulent Northmen brought upon almost the whole world. The hosts of the Northmen were recruited from the bravest of the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians who at that time chanced to be united under one principate. First of all they brought under tribute the Slavs who were close at hand and then they harassed the other neighboring realms by land and sea. Their strength had, indeed,

been increased not a little by the weakening of the Roman Empire which after the time of the elder Louis was exhausted, as has been said before, first by the civil wars and then by its division into four parts ruled by as many petty kings. Well known is it [1] that at that time the Northmen, coming up the Loire, burned Tours and, ascending the Seine, besieged Paris, and that the terror stricken king Charles gave them a land to live in, which received the name Normandy from its being possessed by the Northmen. Then they laid waste Lotharingia and conquered Frisia. But our Ludwig, the king of Germany, either by treaties or through battles, so far held back the Northmen that, although they devastated the whole of Francia, they did not do the slightest harm to his realm. After his death

Wild barbarism ruled without restraint.

The Bohemians, the Sorbs, the Susi, and other Slavs, whom he had subjected to tribute, then threw off the yoke of servitude. Then, also, was Saxony laid waste by the Northmen or Danes.

Duke Bruno was killed with twelve of his counts, and Bishops Theodoric and Markward were slain. [2] At that time, also, Frisia was ravaged and the city of Utrecht demolished. [3] Then the pirates burned Koln and Trier and stabled their horses in the palace at Aachen. The people of Mainz began to erect fortifications in fear of the barbarians. The son of Ludwig, the young

Charles, [4] who at this time returned from Rome, confronted the Northmen with a large army at the river Meuse. Surrounding and pressing in upon them, on the fifteenth day he at length

compelled surrender. He did not, however, punish the captive tyrants of the Danes with the severity which they as enemies of God deserved, but, to the lasting humiliation and serious injury of the Church, spared the impious ones and after accepting their oath and entering into an alliance with them permitted them to leave his presence very richly laden with gifts. When they had secured their baneful freedom, they scorned the naiveté of the young king and, again uniting their forces, perpetrated such carnage as exceeds the measure of belief. Why say more? Cities with their inhabitants, bishops with all in their flocks, were struck down at one time. Noble churches were burned, together with multitudes of the faithful. On this account Charles was cited in the diet and deposed from the kingship for his folly; Arnulf, his brother’s son, succeeded him. Bringing together an army, he advanced into the territories of the Danes and in many hard fought battles destroyed them even to the point of extermination. The war was directed from on high [5] for, though a hundred thousand pagans were killed in conflict, scarcely a Christian was found to have fallen. In such wise was an end made of the persecution of the Northmen. The Lord avenged the blood which His servants had for seventy years poured forth. These events took place in the time of Archbishop Adalgar, who was the successor of the blessed Rimbert and the third after the blessed Ansgar. When Adalgar died, Hoger followed him in the see and after him, Reginward. As for the succession of kings, Ludwig the Child ruled after Arnulf. [6] In this Ludwig the stock of Charles the Great came to an end. He was presently deposed from the kingship and was succeeded by Conrad, the duke of the Franconians. [7]

[1] With the exception of the lines about Charles the Fat, the succession of the archbishops of Hamburg, and some explanatory data this chapter is from this point based on Adam, i, 28 (30), 38 (40), 40 (42), 47 (49), 51 (S3). 52 (54). Adam derives some of his information from the Annales Fuld., ann. 850, 853, 880, 881, 887, 891. Both Adam and Helmold are confused in their connection of events. Cf. Vogel, Die Normannen und das Frankische Reich, pp. 280-90.

[2] Ludwig the German, who died in 876, had committed the defense of Saxony to one Liudolph whose sons were Bruno and Otto, the latter known as “the Illustrious.” They ably defended the land and promoted the interests of the family. Otto the Illustrious was thefather of Henry I, the Fowler. The battle in which Bruno lost his life was fought February 2, 880, somewhere on the Luneburg Heath. Theodoric was bishop of Minden and Markward, of Hildesheim. Cf. Thiet., ii, 23 (15); Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, II, 630;Dummler, Geschichle des ostfrankischen Reichs, II, 136-38.

[3] Maestricht not Utrecht was destroyed.

[4] Charles the Fat (876-87). When they heard of his advance Gottfried and Siegfried, who had perpetrated some of the outrages mentioned above, retired to a camp which they had built at Elsloo. There Charles besieged them for two weeks and then made the peace referred to in the text. The emperor let the vikings keep their plunder and besides paid them 2,412 pounds of silver and ceded lands to their chiefs. Cf. Ann. Fuld., an. 882; Dummler, op. cit., I, 203-05.

[5] Orosius, Historiarum adversus paganos libri, vii, 15. The figure given for the number of Danish dead is no doubt an exaggeration. Adam also used the number seventy for a long period of years.

[6] Adalgar died May 9, 909, and Hoger, December 20, 915. In the fifteenth century the Boeckel codex was annotated: “Wasted away by a long illness, this emperor, Arnulf,could be preserved by no medicinal art from being consumed by lice.” He died, as a matter of fact, of a paralysis hereditary in the family, December 8, 899.

[7] He died August or September, 911. Adam, i, 52 (54.), also makes this mistake.

8. The Invasion of the Hungarians

While Conrad reigned [1] there occurred a baleful invasion of the Hungarians, who ravaged not only our Saxony and the other provinces on this side of the Rhine, but also Lotharingia

and Francia beyond the Rhine. At that time churches were burned, crosses mutilated and held to mockery by the barbarians, priests murdered before their altars, clerics herded together with

the populace either to be executed or to be led into captivity. The marks of this fury have endured to our own age. The Danes with the help of the Slavs also plundered first the Nordalbingian, then the Transalbingian Saxons, and made Saxony quake with great terror. [2] Over the Danes there ruled at that time Gorm, a most savage worm, [3] I say, and not moderately hostile to the Christians. In his determination utterly to destroy Christianity in Denmark, he drove the priests out of his territories and even tortured many to death. But after King Henry, Conrad’s son, [4] who feared God even from his boyhood and placed all reliance

upon His mercy, had triumphed over the Hungarians in mighty battles, he struck the Bohemians and the Sorbs, who had been subdued by other kings, and the other Slavic peoples with such force in one great encounter that the rest (and few were left) of their own accord promised to the king that they would pay tribute and to God that they would be Christians. [5] Then he invaded Denmark with an army and in the first battle so thoroughly terrified King Gorm that the latter pledged himself to obey his commands and, as a suppliant, sued for peace. The victorious King Henry fixed the boundary of the kingdom in Schleswig, which is now called Haddeby, [6] appointed a margrave, and ordered a colony of Saxons to settle there. When the most saintly archbishop, Unni, who had succeeded Reginward in the see, learned that by the mercy of our God and the valor of King Henry the obstinacy of the Danes and of the Slavs had been overcome, and that the door of the faith had been opened to the heathen, he determined to go in person throughout the whole length and breadth of his diocese. Accompanied, therefore, by many religious, he came to the Danes over whom the most cruel Gorm still held sway. The latter he could not bend on account of his inborn savagery, but he converted his son, Harold, and made him so faithful to Christ that, although he himself had not yet received the sacrament of baptism, he permitted the public profession of Christianity, which his father ever hated. And so, after the saint of God had ordained priests for the several churches in the kingdom of the Danes, he is said to have commended the multitude of believers to Harold. Seconded also by his aid and legate, Unni went into all the islands of the Danes, preaching the Word of God and comforting in Christ the faithful whom he found captive there. Then he crossed the Baltic Sea, as the great preacher Ansgar had done, and not without difficulty came to Bj5rko, the principal city of Sweden. Thither no teacher had dared to go in the seventy years since the death of the saintly Ansgar save only one, as we read, Rimbert. Bjorko, the most celebrated town of the Goths, [7] is situated in the middle of Sweden on a bight of the Baltic Sea. For this reason Bjorko is a most desirable port to which all the ships of the Danes, Norwegians, and likewise those of the Slavs and Sembi and of other peoples of Scythia [8] are wont to come regularly for the various necessities of trade. Landing at this port on his unusual errand, the confessor of the Lord began to address the people. The Swedes and the Goths had, indeed, entirely forgotten the Christian religion because of the manifold perils of the times and the bloody ferocity of their kings. By the favor of God’s grace they were, however, once more recalled to the faith by the holy father Unni. When the evangelist of God had completed his mission and was arranging for his return, he suddenly fell ill and laid down the burden of his

wearied body in Bjorko. He had fought the good fight and he died in the nine hundred and thirty-sixth year of the Lord’s incarnation. The venerable Adaldag succeeded him in the see.

[1] Conrad I (911-18). All of this chapter but the introductory clause and a few words here and there is quoted or paraphrased from Adam, i, 53 (55), 55-62 (57-64); ii, I.

[2] The Transalbingian Saxons lived east of the Elbe.

[3] Adam’s (and Helmold’s) text reads: Worm regnavit, crudelissimus, inquam, vermis.

[4] Helmold supplies filius Conradi, but Henry was the son of Otto the Illustrious, not of Conrad. Cf. chap. 7 n. 2, supra.

[5] Near Lenzen, September 4, 929. Henry’s campaigns against the Slavs occupied the years 928-32, although minor operations took place in 933 and 934. Cf. Waitz, Heinrich I, pp. 127-31 and passim.

[6] Adam errs here, for the Haddeby in question lies farther to the south. The Eider River was the boundary. Biereye, Beitrage zur Geschichte Nordalbingiens im 10. Jahrhundert, pp. 10-14. Widukind, Rerum gest. Sax., i, 40, states that Henry fought not Gorm but one of his sons, King Chnuba (Cnut). Cf. Thiet., i, 17 (9); Waltz, op. cit., pp. 159-62, 277-81.

[7] A considerable part of Sweden north of the coastal districts, Scania, Blekinge, and Smaland, was known as Gothland.

[8] Scythia, according to Adam, here included Sweden, Finland and the northern parts of Russia. Sembi is another name for the Prussians.

9. The Conversion of Harold

In that same year the glorious emperor [1] Henry departed this life and his son Otto, surnamed the Great, was established in the realm. At the beginning of his reign he endured many

wrongs from his brothers. The king of the Danes, who had been tributary to Otto’s father, also threw off the yoke of subjection and took up arms in behalf of freedom. First of all he murdered the margrave who was over Schleswig, also called Haddeby, together with the legate of King Otto, and utterly wiped out the whole colony of Saxons which had been established there. The Slavs, no less disposed to change, also set about rebelling and many times terrorized the Saxon frontiers. As soon as King Otto was freed from the plottings of his brothers, with the support of divine help he executed judgment and justice unto his people. After he had brought into subjection to his rule nearly all the kingdoms which had seceded after the death of Charles, he took up arms against the Danes. [2] He marched his army across the Danish frontier, which at one time had been at Schleswig, and devastated the whole region with fire and sword, even to the farthest sea which separates the Northmen from the Danes and which to this very day is called the Ottensund [3] for the victory of the king. When he was returning he was attacked by King Harold at Schleswig. In the battle, which was manfully contested on both sides, the Saxons

gained the victory and the Danes withdrew in retreat to their ships. When conditions at length were favorable for peace, Harold submitted to Otto and, on getting back his kingdom from the latter, bound himself to receive Christianity in Denmark. Without delay Harold was baptized together with his wife, Gunnhild, and his little son, whom our king raised up from the sacred font and named Svein Otto. At this time Denmark accepted completely the faith and was divided into three dioceses which were subjected to the metropolitan of Hamburg. [4] The most blessed Adaldag, then, was the first to consecrate bishops for Denmark and from this time on, the church at Hamburg began to have suffragans. Indeed, such increase followed these beginnings of heavenly mercy that the churches of the Danes seem to abound in the manifold fruits of the northern nations from that time even to this day. When the most valorous King Otto had duly settled his affairs in Denmark, he turned his army to the subjugation of the rebellious Slavs. These people, whom his father had conquered in one great war, he now pressed with such energy that for the sake of their lives as well as for the sake of their fatherland, they freely proffered the victor both tribute and conversion to Christianity. The whole of the pagan folk was baptized. Then were churches first built in Slavia. Concerning these events some matters may be more fitly discussed in the setting in which they occurred. [5]

[1] More correctly, king. Twelfth century writers did not always distinguish carefully between imperator and rex. Henry I died July 2, 936, and Otto I was crowned at Aachen August 31, 936. Cf. Kopke-Dummler, Otto der Grosse, Excurs 2. Helmold draws on Adam, ii, 3-5, for this chapter.

[2] This story of Otto’s war on Denmark is questioned. Adam does not mention Otto II’s war on Denmark is questioned. Adam does not mention Otto II’sexpedition against Harold Blue-Tooth because he here attributed it to Otto I.

[3] The Kattegat. Cf. Schmeidler (ed.), Adam, p. 63 n. 4.

[4] Hauck (Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, III, 92 100 n. 3) thinks that thisconsecration of bishops for Jutland, not Denmark, took place in 947 or shortly before. The three sees were Schleswig, Ribe, and Aarhus.

[5] Chaps. 12, 14, infra, for which Helmold draws on Adam, ii, 26 (24).

10. Duke Hermann

When after these events [1] the most victorious King Otto was called into Italy to free the Holy See, he is said to have taken counsel as to whom he should leave behind him as vice-regent

to give justice in the lands which lay along the barbarian frontier. For since the time of Charles, Saxony had had no duke except the Caesar himself because of the ancient rebelliousness of its

people. So that in his absence the Danes or Slavs might not plot revolt, the king let necessity persuade him for the first time to delegate his position as ruler in Saxony to Hermann. [2] I think it necessary to recall some facts about this man and his progeny because they have in our times come to be very powerful. This man was born of poor parents and is said to have been content at first with his paternal inheritance of seven hides and as many tenants. Then, because he was shrewd of mind and prepossessing in appearance as well as trustworthy and humble in his bearing toward his lords and peers, he quickly attracted notice at court and [won] the confidence of the king himself. On discovering the assiduity of the young man, the king enrolled him in the number of his aides. Later he appointed him to be the tutor of his sons and soon, as his fortunes prospered, even committed to him prefectural posts. [3] It is said that in the energetic administration of these offices, when tenants of his own were cited in his court for theft, he rendered a decision condemning them one and all to death. The novelty of this act at the time endeared him to the people and soon distinguished him at court. Indeed, on acquiring the ducal power in Saxony, he governed the province with judgment and justice and to the end of his life remained zealous in the defense of the holy churches. [4]

On having thus entrusted his power in this region to so excellent a man, the most pious king departed into Italy. [5] There he held a council of the bishops and brought about the deposition

of Pope John, surnamed Octavian, who stood accused of many crimes. He did this notwithstanding the pope’s absence, for the latter had fled to escape judgment, and he had the protoscriniarius Leo consecrated in his stead. Soon afterward he himself was crowned emperor by Leo [6] and hailed as Augustus by the Roman people in the twenty-eighth year of his reign.

Since the coronation of Charles at Rome one hundred and fifty-three years had elapsed. [7] At this time the emperor and his son spent five years in Italy, [8] fighting with the sons of Berengar

and restoring Rome to her ancient freedom. Upon his return thereafter to his fatherland he gave his entire attention to the conversion of the heathen, particularly the Slavs. This work

turned out according to his wishes, for God in all things concurred with and strengthened the right arm of the most pious king.

[1] In this chapter Helmold does little more than add the observations about the Slavs to what he draws from Adam, ii, 2, 8-11 (7-9).

[2] The following account of Hermann Billung is generally questioned. Cf. Kopke-Dummler, Otto der Grosse, Exkurs 3 ; Steindorff, De ducatus, qui Billingorum dicitur, in Saxonia origine et progressu. Helmold has in mind Henry the Lion and Albert the Bear when he supplies the information that Hermann’s progeny had “in our times come to be very powerful.”

[3] Like those of a count.

[4] Hermann died March 27, 973. Like Adam, Helmold has the churches of Hamburg and Bremen in mind.

[5] In August, 961. Pope John XII (Octavian) had called Otto I to his aid against Berengar II of Ivrea in 960.

[6] Adam confuses events, and Helmold does not correct him. Otto I was crowned emperor February 2, 962, by Pope John XII, not by the pope he later set up, Leo VIII. While Otto was campaigning against Berengar of Ivrea, John XII turned against him.Otto returned to Rome and caused John XII to be deposed by a synod composed chieflyof Italian prelates, December 4, 963. On this occasion the protoscriniarius Leo was chosen pope and he took the name Leo VIII. Otto then again went off to fight Berengar. In his absence the Romans drove out Leo VIII, recalled John XII and, when he died shortly afterward (May 14, 964), elected a worthy cleric, Benedict V. The Boeckel codex is annotated in fifteenth century script here: “Note: In Otto’s absence the Romans created athird pope, Benedict. After Otto had on this account brought together a great army he besieged Rome until they presented the intruder, Benedict, to him. When Pope Leo was returned to his seat and everything was quiet, Otto went back into Saxony, taking with him Pope Benedict, who at length died and was buried in Hamburg.”

[7] Otto I was crowned emperor in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, the hundred and sixty-second after the coronation of Charles the Great.

[8] The war lasted not five years, but three years and four months, from August 961 to January 965. Otto I’s son, the second of the name, did not come to Italy until October 967, with his father’s third expedition. He had been crowned king at Aachen, May 26, 961. John XIII crowned him emperor on Christmas day 967.

11. Archbishop Adalbert

After the Slavic tribes had been subjected to and united in the Christian faith, Otto the Great built on the banks of the river Elbe the renowned city of Magdeburg and designated it as the

metropolitan see for the Slavs. He had Adalbert, a man of the greatest sanctity, consecrated there as its archbishop. [1] This man was, therefore, the first prelate to be consecrated in Magdeburg and he administered his episcopal office with untiring energy for twelve years. By his preaching there he converted many of the Slavic people. His consecration took place in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of the emperor, one hundred and thirty-seven years after the consecration of the saintly Ansgar. [2] To the archbishopric of Magdeburg was subjected all of Slavia as far as the Peene River. There were five suffragan bishoprics: of these Merseburg and Zeitz are situated on the Saale River; Meissen, on the Elbe; Brandenburg and Havelberg, farther inland. [3] The sixth bishopric of Slavia is Oldenburg. [4] The emperor Otto had originally decreed that this bishopric should, like the others, be subject to Magdeburg, but Adaldag, the bishop of Hamburg, later asked for it because it had been included within the limits of his church by ancient imperial charters.

[1] Otto I founded the bishopric and built the cathedral of Magdeburg, but not the city. Magdeburg was an old German-Slav trading center and first appears in history in the time of Charles the Great; it did not become important until Otto I founded a Benedictine monastery there in 937 and secured papal approval for his design to establish an archbishopric in 962. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, III, 109-36.

[2] John XIII consecrated Adalbert in Rome, probably October 18, 968; certainly, Adalbert consecrated two suffragan bishops in Magdeburg on Christmas day of that year. Since he died June 21, 981, he ruled thirteen years. Likewise, his consecration in all probability took place in the thirty-second or thirty-third year of Otto’s reign, one hundred and thirty-six years after Ansgar’s consecration in 832, as Adam reckoned.

[3] Zeitz is situated on the Weisse Elster, not on the Saale River, and the see was moved to Naumburg in 1032 because that site was less exposed to attack by the Slavs. Kretschmer, Historische Geographic von Mitleleuropa, pp. 428-32.

[4] This bishopric was probably founded in 948, but subject to the metropolitan see ofMainz until 968, when it was transferred to the jurisdiction of Hamburg-Bremen. Curschmann, “Die Entstehung des Bistums Oldenburg,” Historische Vierleljahrschrift, XIV (1911), 182-98. Hauck (op. cit., Ill, 107 n. 3), summarizes the controversy over the dateof the founding, but note Schmeidler (ed.), Adam, p. 72 n. 1. To this point in the chapterHelmold follows Adam, ii, 15 (13), 16 (14); what follows he writes from his own knowledge.

12. Bishop Marco

The Oldenburg which in the Slavic tongue is called Starigard, that is “Old Town,” is situated in the country of the Wagiri on the western reaches of the Baltic Sea and is the farthest point

in Slavia. [1] This city and province were at one time inhabited by very brave men because through their location on the border of the whole of Slavia they had as neighbors the Danish and Saxon peoples, and the inhabitants were always the first either to make war or to bear the brunt of all the wars brought on by others. There are, however, said to have been among them at times rulers mighty enough to bring under their control all the territory of the Abodrites and of the Kicini and of those who were farther distant. When, as was said above, all the Slavic country was conquered and reduced, the city of Oldenburg also received the faith and became very rich in the number of believers. To this town the most excellent Caesar appointed the venerable Marco bishop and placed in his charge the entire country of the Abodrites as far as the Peene River and the city of Demmin. [2] The Caesar also committed to his care the well-known city of Schleswig, which is likewise known under the name of Haddeby. At that time Schleswig with the adjacent province, which extends from the Schlei Sea to the Eider River, was subject to the sway of the Roman Empire. Its lands were extensive and fruitful in crops but for the most part deserted because, being situated between the ocean [3] and the Baltic Sea, they were frequently laid waste by hostile visitations. When, however, through the mercy of God and the valor of Otto the Great a lasting peace was everywhere established, the deserted places of

Wagria and the country of Schleswig began to be repeopled, and there was not left any corner which was not conspicuous for its towns and villages, and also for its many monasteries. There remain to this day numerous indications of that old occupation, especially in the forest which extends in a wide sweep from the city of Liitjenburg into Schleswig. In its vast and scarcely penetrable solitude traces of the furrows which had separated the plowlands of former times may be descried among the stoutest trees of the woods. Wall structures indicate the plans

of towns and also of cities. In many streams ancient embankments, once thrown up to collect the tributary waters for the mills, show that all that woodland had once been inhabited by

the Saxons. [4] The first bishop placed in charge of this new plantation was, as I have said, Marco, who cleansed in the sacred font of baptism the Wagrian and Abodrite peoples.

When he died Schleswig was distinguished by an extraordinary prelate. The governance of the see of Oldenburg was bestowed upon the venerable Egward who converted many of the Slavs to the Lord. He was consecrated by the saintly Adaldag, archbishop of Hamburg. Now the congregation of the faithful grew and nothing happened to the detriment of the new plantation in the whole period of the Ottos. Of these, I have learned, there were three, every one animated by equal zeal for the conversion of the Slavs. And all the land of the Wagiri, of the Abodrites, and of the Kicini was filled with churches and priests, with monks and nuns dedicated to God.

The church at Oldenburg was consecrated to the memory of Saint John the Baptist and distinguished by the honor of being the mother church. The church at Mecklenburg was built in honor of the Prince of the Apostles, Peter, and a convent of nuns was attached to it. The bishops of Oldenburg, besides, held the rulers of the Slavs in great respect because, through the munificence of the great prince Otto, they had been provided with an abundance of worldly goods from which they could dispense generously and win for themselves the good will of the people. An annual tribute from all the land of the Wagiri and Abodrites was given to the bishop. It was, indeed, regarded as taking the place of a tithe and was made up of a measure of grain, of forty small bundles of flax, and of twelve pennies of pure silver from every plow; in addition to this, one penny was given to the collector of the tax. The Slavic plow consisted of so much land as could be worked by one pair of oxen or by one horse. [5] To set forth in detail the towns or the goods or the number of manors which were in the possession of the bishop is not the purpose of this work because “old things are passed” into oblivion and “behold all things are become new.” [6]

[1] That is, to the west. Helmold is only slightly in debt to Adam in this chapter, ii, 26(24); schol. 15 (16), 29. Von Breska (Untersuchungen uber die Nachrichten Helmolds, pp. 19-26), contends that Helmold had innocently used one, perhaps two, spurious accountsexaggerating the extent of the original donations to the see of Oldenburg in this and chapters 13, 14, and 18 following. Schmeidler is of the opinion that Helmold followed popular traditions.

[2] According to Adam Egward was the first bishop consecrated for Oldenburg in 968. Marco was bishop of Schleswig (948?-965?) and probably also administered affairs in the diocese of Oldenburg.

[3] The North Sea.3 The North Sea.

[4] Cf. Thompson, Feudal Germany, p. 491.

[5] Cf. Thompson, op. cit., pp. 399 and n. 3, 485 n. 3, 532.

[6] Cf. Thompson, op. cit., pp. 399 and n. 3, 485 n. 3, 532.9 II Cor. 5:17.

13. Bishop Wago

In the thirty-eighth year [1] of his reign as king and the eleventh as emperor, the great prince Otto, the conqueror of all the nations of the north, departed happily to the Lord and received

burial in his city of Magdeburg. His son Otto, the middle one, succeeded him and energetically governed the Empire for ten years. As soon as he had overcome Lothair and Charles, the kings of the Franks, [2] he transferred the war into Calabria and died at Rome after he had beaten the Saracens and been beaten by them and by the Greeks.[3] The third Otto, although still a boy, [4] succeeded to the throne and for eighteen years distinguished the scepter by a strong and just rule.

At the same time Hermann, the duke of the Saxons, died and left as heir his son, Benno, who also is remembered for having been a good and brave man, except that he departed from his father’s policy in burdening the people with exactions. [5] At Oldenburg Wago succeeded on Egward’s death. Wago lived very prosperously among the Slavs and, it is said, had a very beautiful sister whom a chieftain of the Abodrites, named Billug, coveted. Because he frequently made advances to the bishop regarding his suit, certain friends of the bishop with incautious and insulting words opposed his plea, saying that it was not right that a most beautiful virgin should be united with an uncultured and boorish man. [6] his affront Billug pretended not to notice and, smitten with love, did not cease to urge his suit. The bishop feared lest serious harm might come upon the young church if he did not listen favorably to the suit, and he gave Billug his sister in marriage. By her, Billug had a daughter named Hodica. Her uncle, the bishop, placed her in a convent of nuns, trained her in the Sacred Scriptures, and made her abbess over the nuns who lived in Mecklenburg although she had not yet come of years. It was this especially which gave her brother, Mistislav, offense. [7] He was impelled to hate, secretly to be sure, the Christian religion by the fear that through this precedent foreign ways might be introduced into those regions. He frequently upbraided his father for loving empty inventions, as if he were out of his mind, and for not fearing to depart from the laws of his fathers, as he had done first by marrying a German woman, then by consigning his daughter to a monastic cloister. As with these arguments he often goaded his father, the latter by degrees began to change his mind and even to think of repudiating his wedded wife and of bringing about a change. Fear, however, held him back from doing so; the undertaking of serious business is always difficult. Moreover, the valor of the Saxons was very formidable. War would of necessity follow immediately upon the repudiation of the bishop’s sister and the sundering of religious connections.

[1] Adam refers the death of Otto I, May 7, 973, to the thirty-eighth year of the pontificate of Adaldag, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.

[2] Otto II by no means conquered King Lothair (954-86) of the West Franks and his brother, Charles, duke of Lorraine. Cf. Cambridge Medieval History, III, 207-08.

[3] This Italian war (980-83) was waged to win the marriage portion of his Byzantine wife, Theophano. Otto won at Cotrone (the ancient Croton) but not long after fell into an ambush from which he escaped although his army was almost annihilated. Otto II died in Rome December 7, 983. Adam does not notice Otto II’s war with Harold Blue-Tooth for the reason that he attributes it to Otto I. Vide chap. 9 n. 2, supra.

[4] Born in the summer of 980. Ublirz, Otto II und Otto III, p. 135 n. 15.

[5] Adam and Helmold call Bernhard I, Benno. He was duke from 973 to 1011. Thus far Helmold draws his information from Adam, ii, 24 (21). The story of Billug and Mistislav in this and the following chapter probably rests on a contemporary saga, but belongs to the diocese of Mecklenburg rather than to that of Oldenburg and Wagria. Von Breska, Untersuchungen uber die Nachrichten Helmolds, pp. 22-23.

[6] Cf. Thompson, Feudal Germany, pp. 392 n. 2, 505 n. 3.

[7] There is much doubt as to his identity, but he may possibly be the “Misfizlav” mentioned by Thietmar, ix, 5 (viii, 4).

14. The Treachery of Billug

Now, it happened that one day the bishop came into the city of the Abodrites, Mecklenburg, on a visitation. Thither also Billug and his chiefs had repaired to receive him with pretended devotion. The princeling of the Abodrites addressed the prelate, thus engrossed with public matters:

I am under great obligations to your holiness, venerable father, although I well recognize that I am in no way able to requite them. Personal favors which you have conferred on me, I for the present forego mentioning because they are manifold and call for lengthy discourse. I feel constrained to dwell on the general good of the land as a whole. Your solicitude about the establishment of churches and the salvation of souls has, indeed, been manifest to all. The number of times you have through your foresight warded off harsh measures on the part of the princes, thus enabling us to live peacefully and quietly in the favor of these princes, is not unknown. Were it, therefore, required of us, we should without hesitation devote ourselves and our possessions to your honor. One slight petition, however, I do not hesitate to lay before you; deny me not. [1] There is among the Abodrites an episcopal tribute, regarded as a tithe; namely, from every plow, which consists of two oxen or of one horse, a measure of grain and forty bundles of flax and twelve pennies of approved money, besides one penny which is due to the collector. I ask that you permit me to make this collection and to allot it to the support of your niece, my daughter. That I may not, in making this request, by chance appear to be injuring you or to be lessening your revenue, I shall add to your possessions in each and every Burgward which is in the country of the Abodrites such villages as you yourself may select, except those which by imperial concessions have already come under episcopal jurisdiction.

Not noticing the treachery concealed in the fine words of the cunning man and thinking, too, that the exchange would not be detrimental to him, the bishop without delay granted his petition. He selected, indeed, estates of very ample extent and, as I have noted above, resigned to his brother-in-law the collection of the tribute for the use of his daughter. The bishop

stayed yet for some time among the Abodrites, alloting the properties which his settlers were to work, and when all his affairs were arranged returned to the land of the Wagiri, a place which was more convenient for him and where he was out of danger. The disposition of the Slavs, by nature untrustworthy and prone to evil, had to be guarded against. In addition to others, the bishop had two noteworthy residences [2] at which he very often tarried, one on the royal estate called Bosau, the other on the river Trave, in a place named Nezenna, [3] where

there was also a chapel and a refectory built of masonry. The foundations of these buildings I saw when I was a youth because they are not far from the foot of the mountain which the ancients called Eilberch and the moderns, Segeberg, [4] from the castle built on its summit.

After a considerable time, as Bishop Wago was occupied in other parts and went less frequently into the country of the Abodrites, the above-mentioned Billug, together with his son

Mistislav, took advantage of opportunities gradually to unfold the plot which he had laid against his lord and pastor. By stealthy plundering he began to lay waste the episcopal possessions which the bishop had commended to his protection as vassal and relative and in an under-handed way to send his own serfs to steal away from the settlers their horses and other

property. He directed his efforts even to this end that, as he deprived the bishop of his right to the tithes, so would he strip him of his possessions and, having struck down the head, the

service of God could the more easily be extinguished. At length, however, the bishop came into the country of the Abodrites and, on holding there a reckoning with his settlers, clearly perceived by whose machinations such villainies were being perpetrated on his possessions. No wonder that at this discovery he was deeply moved with amazement and at the same time with fear, for he had found the most atrocious plotters to be those whom he had thought his best friends. Apprehending the failure of the new plantation, he now became seized with indecision. However, he fell back on a policy which for the moment seemed to be safest and sought to discover whether by persuasion he could possibly remedy the evil which had gradually stolen in. He began with many blandishments to wheedle his brother-in-law into giving up his designs and foregoing the exposure of the ecclesiastical possessions to the plundering of robbers. He said that if he did not come to his senses, he would incur not only the displeasure of God but also that of his imperial majesty. Parrying these remonstrances, Billug replied that he had never been guilty of such gross deception toward his lord and father, for whom he had ever had the warmest affection; that if anything of the sort had taken place, it had happened through the wiles of the robbers who came from the Rugiani and Wilzi and did not spare his own holdings; and that he would, indeed, willingly give his advice and aid in restraining them. Thus the simple man was easily persuaded to give up the judgment he had formed. After the bishop had departed, satisfied with this explanation, the promise made him was at once broken. The plotters returned to their shameful undertakings and set fire to the villages in addition to robbing them. Moreover, they threatened with death all the settlers who belonged to the bishop’s jurisdiction, should they fail to leave their farms without delay. And so desolation came in a short while upon these possessions.

In addition to these misdeeds this same Billug broke his marriage vows by repudiating the bishop’s sister. This act was the particular occasion of ill feeling and the state of the church

gradually became precarious. Nor was there at hand any means by which the condition of the young church could be fully restored because Otto the Great had long ago departed this life

and both the second and the third Ottos were occupied with their Italian wars. On this account the Slavs, trusting to the advantages of the situation, began little by little to strive not only

against the divine laws but also against the imperial commands. Only Duke Benno of Saxony seemed to possess some power, although but a tenuous shadow, respect for which checked the impulse of the Slavs so that they neither renounced the Christian faith nor took up arms.

When Wago died, Ezico succeeded to the see. He received his consecration from the most saintly Adaldag, archbishop of Hamburg. [5] We have learned that four bishops lived before

the destruction of the church of Oldenburg; namely, Marco, Egward, [6] Wago, and Ezico in whose time the Slavs kept the faith. Churches were erected everywhere in Slavia and many monasteries were built in which men and women served God. Witness to this is Master Adam who eloquently recounted the deeds of the bishops of the church of Hamburg and who, in recalling that Slavia was divided into eighteen cantons, stated that all but three had been converted to the faith of Christ.

[1] I Kings 2:16, 20.

[2] Curtes, which might be hamlet communities or, as in this case, probably fortified manor houses. Villae were open, unfortified villages. A Burgward was, as Henry I organized the conquered Slav country, a military base which in the course of time became the center of the civil and ecclesiastical as v.ell as military administration of the near-by country. Thompson, Feudal Germany, pp. 4.82, 483 and n. 1.

[3] Gnissau near Lubeck.

[4] Kalkberg near Segeberg, west of Lubeck. Cf. chaps. 49, 53, infra.

[5] Adaldag died April 29, 988. Both Wago and Ezico had been consecrated by him, perhaps before 984.

[6] From this point Helmold follows Adam, ii, 26 (24), and Adam cites Svein, the king of the Danes, as his authority.

15. Svein, The King of the Danes

At the same time Boleslav, [1] the most Christian king of the Poles, in alliance with Otto III, subjected to tribute all of Slavia beyond the Oder and also the Russians and Prussians at whose hands Bishop Adalbert had suffered martyrdom. [2] Boleslav then brought Bishop Adalbert’s remains into Poland. The princes of the Slavs who are called Winuli, or Winithi, were at that time Mistislav, Naccon, and Sederich [3] under whom there was continuous peace and the Slavs served as tributaries. One may not, however, properly pass over the fact that this Mistislav, prince of the Abodrites, who openly professed but secretly persecuted Christ, abducted his sister Hodica, a virgin dedicated to God, from the convent of nuns which was in Mecklenburg and gave her in a most lustful marriage to a certain Boleslav. The other nuns whom he found there he either handed over in marriage to his warriors or sent into the country of the Wilzi or Rugiani, and desolation thus came upon that convent.

Because of the sins of men God permitted in those days the peace which was with the Danes and the Slavs to be disturbed and allowed a wicked man to try to oversow with tares the fair

growing grain of divine religion. For among the Danes the son of the most Christian king Harold, Svein Otto, [4] inflamed by a diabolical spirit, set on foot many conspiracies against his father

because he desired to deprive him of the throne, now that Harold was advanced in years and less strong, and to root out entirely the work of the divine plantation from the territories of the Danes. Harold, as has been said above, had at first been a heathen. When converted to the faith of Christ by the teaching of the great father Unni, he behaved himself with such devotion to the Lord that there has not arisen among all the kings of the Danes one like him. He drew the vast reaches of the north to a knowledge of the divine faith and made all that country notable for its churches and its priests. Remarkable as was this man for his zeal in godly matters, not less remarkable was he in worldly wisdom. With regard to that which manifestly pertained to the government of the kingdom, he was so distinguished that out of respect for his reputation to this day not only the Danes but also the Saxons strive to observe the laws and judgments which he gave. At the instigation, however, of those who refused to serve God and to keep the king’s peace, the Danes one and all conspired to renounce Christianity, set the impious Svein upon the throne and declared war against his father Harold. Even as the latter had from the beginning of his reign ever placed his trust in God, he also then most particularly commended to God the issue of the event, sorrowing not so much over his own danger as over the sin of his son and the trials of the Church. When he perceived that the tumult could not be quelled without war, he unwillingly took up arms at the exhortation of those who strove to keep their fidelity to the Lord and to the king inviolate. War, therefore, ensued. In the conflict the party of Harold was beaten and many fell covered with wounds. Severely wounded, Harold himself fled from the battle, boarded a ship and escaped to Jumne, the most renowned city of the Slavs. There he was kindly received, contrary to his expectations, for the people were barbarians. After some days he failed because of his wound and passed away in the confession of Christ. He deserves to be enrolled not only among the kings pleasing to God, but also among the glorious martyrs. He had reigned fifty years.

On Harold’s death Svein, who had possessed himself of the kingdom, began to give free rein to his passionate cruelty by carrying on a most grievous persecution against the Christians. All the wicked ones in the countries of the north stood up together, rejoicing that now the way was open to their malice—namely, for wars and disturbances—and they began to harass the neighboring countries by land and sea. First they collected a fleet of warships, rowed across the British Ocean by the shortest route, and landed on the banks of the Elbe River. There without warning they burst upon the peaceful and unsuspecting people, ravaged the whole coast of Hadeln and all the land of the Saxons along the river bank until they came to Stade, which is a convenient haven for ships descending the Elbe. Counts Siegfried and Dietrich and the other nobles [5] to whom the safety of the province was entrusted, quickly learned this sad news and

rushed to meet the barbarians. Although they were very few in number, the need of the hour constrained them to attack the enemy in this port of Stade. In this furious battle the valorous

Saxons were completely overcome and the Danes conquered. The counts and the other nobles and knightly men who survived the slaughter were bound, chained, and dragged to the ships. Count Siegfried fled in the night with the help of a fisherman and escaped captivity. Enraged at his getting away the barbarians severed the hands and feet of all the noble men whom they had in chains, cut off their noses, and threw them half dead on shore. Then they plundered the rest of the land with impunity. Another band of the pirates who had gone up the Weser laid waste all the country along that stream as far as Lesum and reached the Glinster Moor with a large number of captives. [6] When there they made a certain captive Saxon knight lead the way, he took them into the most untraversable parts of the swamp. There they were fatigued after some time and were easily dispersed by the Saxons who trailed them. Twenty thousand of them perished. The name of the knight who led them into the impasse was Heriwardj his praise is sounded the year round by the Saxons.

[1] Helmold freely intermingles in this chapter information of his own with that which he draws from Adam, ii, 26-29 (24-27), 31 (29), 32 (30); schol. 24 (25). The reference is to Boleslav Chrobry (992-1025) and the year 994. Thompson, Feudal Germany, pp. 641-46.

[2] Chap. I n. 5, supra.

[3] ‘Widukind, Rerum gest. Sax., iii, 50, mentions Naccon as an Abodrite prince active in 955. No Slavic prince named Sederich is known; it has been suggested that the name is not Slavic but Scandinavian, Sithric. Schmeidler (ed.), Adam, p. 86 nn. 8-10; Thompson, op. cit., p. 665.

[4] The Forked Beard (Tveskjoed), 985-1014. Cf. chap. 9, supra, where it is stated that Svein Otto as a child was baptized with his father.

[5] Thietmar of Merseburg, iv, 23-25 (16), and the Annals of Hildesheim and Quedlinburg {an. 994), name three brothers, Henry, Udo, and Siegfried, the sons of Count Henry of Stade. Dietrich was the uncle of Count Ethelger, one of the local nobles. The battle took place June 23, 994.

[6] Lesum is on the Wiimne River near Stade; the Glinster Moor is near Glinstedt in East Havelland.

16. How the Slavs Abandoned the Faith

About the same time ended the year of the incarnation of the Word, 1001, in which the most valiant emperor Otto III sank, overtaken by an untimely death, after he had thrice entered Rome a victor. [1] There succeeded him on the throne the most pious Henry, remarkable for his justice and sanctity, the one, let me recall, who founded the bishopric of Bamberg and provided for churchly worship with the amplest munificence. In the tenth year of Henry’s reign the duke of Saxony died, Benno, a man conspicuous for his thorough probity and zealous defense

of the churches. Bernhard, his son, inherited his princely dignity; he departed, however, from his father’s happy courses. Discord and turbulence never ceased in this country from the time he was established as duke, [2] for the reason that in presuming to rise against the emperor Henry he moved all Saxony to rebel with him against the Caesar. Then he rose against Christ and brought terror and confusion upon all the churches of Saxony, those especially that would not join in the malicious rebellion I have noted. [3] In addition to these misfortunes this duke, entirely unmindful of the esteem in which both his father and his grandfather had held the Slavs, through his avarice cruelly oppressed the nation of the Winuli and sheerly drove it into paganism. At that time Margrave Dietrich and Duke Bernhard held dominion over the Slavs, the former possessing the eastern country, the latter, the western. [4] Their villainy forced the Slavs into apostasy. This heathen folk, still immature in the faith, had previously been treated with great lenience by the most noble princes who had tempered their rigor toward those about whose salvation they were zealously concerned. Now, however, they were pursued by the margrave and Duke Bernhard with such cruelty that they finally threw off the yoke of servitude and had to take up arms in defense of their freedom. Mistivoi and Mizzidrag were the chiefs of the Winuli under whose leadership the rebellion flared up. [5] Now the story goes, and it is ancient lore, that this Mistivoi sought and was promised the hand of Duke Bernhard’s niece. Then the chief of the Winuli in his desire to show he was worthy of the engagement with a thousand horsemen accompanied the duke into Italy and there nearly all of them were killed. When he returned from the expedition, he asked for the maiden who had been promised

to him, but Margrave Dietrich opposed the plan, vociferating that a kinswoman of the duke should not be given to a dog. On hearing this the Slav chieftain departed in great indignation.

When, therefore, the duke had taken other counsel and had sent messengers after him to say that the desired nuptials might take place, Mistivoi is said to have answered: “It is only right

that the highborn niece of a great prince should be married to a man of exalted rank and not, indeed, be given to a dog. The great thanks that are given us for our service is that we are now

considered dogs, not men. Well then, if the dog be hale he will take big bites.” And with these words he returned into Slavia. First of all he went to the city of Rethra, which is in the land

of the Lutici, called together all the Slavs who lived to the eastward and made known to them the insult that had been offered him and that in the language of the Saxons the Slavs are called

“dogs.” But they said: “You, who spurned your co-tribesmen and courted the Saxons, a perfidious and avaricious race, suffer this deservedly. Swear, now, to us that you will give them up and we will stand by you.” And he swore to them.

Therefore, after Duke Bernhard had for apparent reasons taken up arms against the Caesar, the Slavs embraced the opportunity to collect an army and wasted first the whole of Nordalbingia with fire and sword. Then, roving about the rest of Slavia, they burned all the churches and destroyed them even to the ground. They murdered the priests and the other ministers of the churches with diverse tortures and left not a vestige of Christianity beyond the Elbe. At Hamburg, then and later, many clerics and citizens were led off into captivity and many more were put to death through hatred of Christianity. The old men of the Slavs [6] who remember all the deeds of the barbarians tell how Oldenburg had been a city most populous with Christians. There sixty priests (the rest had been slaughtered like cattle) were kept as objects of derision. The oldest of these, the provost of the place, was named Oddar. He and others were martyred in this manner. After the skin of their heads had been cut in the form of a cross, the brain of each was laid bare with an iron. With hands tied behind their backs, the confessors of God were then dragged through one Slavic town after another until they died. After having been thus made “a spectacle … to angels and to men,” [7] they breathed forth their victorious spirits in the middle of the course. [8] Many deeds of this kind, which for lack of written records ar