with no other effect than that of wonder. The first Christian missionary who visited them and worked
among them was Willebrord. Born in Northumbria and educated within the pale of the Keltic Kirk
he went out, in 690, as a missionary to the Frises. Expelled by them he came, about 700, to Denmark,
was well received by king Yngrin (Ogendus), formed a congregation and bought thirty Danish
boys, whom he educated in the Christian religion, and of whom one, Sigwald, is still remembered
as the patron saint of Nuremberg, St. Sebaldus. But his work seems to have been of merely temporary
effect.
Soon, however, the tremendous activity which Charlemagne developed as a political
organizer, was felt even on the Danish frontier. His realm touched the Eyder. Political relations
sprang up between the Roman empire and Denmark, and they opened a freer and broader entrance
to the Christian missionaries. In Essehoe, in Holstein, Charlemagne built a chapel for the use of
the garrison; in Hamburg he settled Heridock as the head of a Christian congregation; and from a
passage in one of Alcuin’s letters^128 it appears that a conversion of the Danes did not lie altogether
outside of his plans. Under his successor, Lewis the Pious, Harald Klak, one of the many petty
kings among whom Denmark was then divided, sought the emperor’s support and decision in a
family feud, and Lewis sent archbishop Ebo of Rheims, celebrated both as a political negotiator
and as a zealous missionary, to Denmark. In 822 Ebo crossed the Eyder, accompanied by bishop
Halitgar of Cambray. In the following years he made several journeys to Denmark, preached,
baptized, and established a station of the Danish mission at Cella Wellana, the present Welnau,
near Essehoe. But he was too much occupied with the internal affairs of the empire and the
opportunity which now opened for the Danish mission, demanded the whole and undivided energy
of a great man. In 826 Harald Klak was expelled and sought refuge with the emperor, Ebo acting
as a mediator. At Ingelheim, near Mentz, the king, the queen, their son and their whole retinue,
were solemnly baptized, and when Harald shortly after returned to Denmark with support from the
emperor, he was accompanied by that man who was destined to become the Apostle of the North,
Ansgar.
Ansgar was born about 800 (according to general acceptation Sept. 9, 801) in the diocese
of Amiens, of Frankish parents, and educated in the abbey of Corbie, under the guidance of Adalhard.
Paschasius Radbertus was among his teachers. In 822 a missionary colony was planted by Corbie
in Westphalia, and the German monastery of Corwey or New Corwey was founded. Hither Ansgar
was removed, as teacher in the new school, and he soon acquired great fame both on account of
his powers as a preacher and on account of his ardent piety. When still a boy he had holy visions,
and was deeply impressed with the vanity of all earthly greatness. The crown of the martyr seemed
to him the highest grace which human life could attain, and he ardently prayed that it might be
given to him. The proposition to follow king Harald as a missionary, among the heathen Danes he
immediately accepted, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, and accompanied by Autbert
he repaired, in 827, to Denmark, where he immediately established a missionary station at Hedeby,
in the province of Schleswig. The task was difficult, but the beginning was not without success.
Twelve young boys were bought to be educated as teachers, and not a few people were converted
and baptized. His kindness to the poor, the sick, to all who were in distress, attracted attention; his
fervor as a preacher and teacher produced sympathy without, as yet, provoking resistance. But in
(^128) Epist. 13, in Monumenta Alcuiniana, Ed. Jaffé.