prayer. Common to all Slavs, however, was a very elaborate belief in fairies and trolls; and polygamy,
sometimes connected with sutteeism, widely prevailed among them. Their conversion was attempted
both by Constantinople and by Rome; but the chaotic and ever-shifting political conditions under
which they lived, the rising difference and jealousy between the Eastern and Western churches,
and the great difficulty which the missionaries experienced in learning their language, presented
formidable obstacles, and at the close of the period the work was not yet completed.
§ 33. Christian Missions among the Wends.
ADAM Of BRENEN (d. 1067): Gesta Hammenb. (Hamburgensis) Eccl. Pont., in Pertz: Monumenta
Germ., VII.
Helmoldus (d. 1147) and Arnoldus Lubecensis: Chronicon Slavorum sive Annales Slavorum, from
Charlemagne to 1170, ed. H. Bangert. Lubecae, 1659. German translation by Laurent. Berlin,
1852.
Spieker: Kirchengeschichte der Mark Brandenburg. Berlin, 1839.
Wiggers: Kirchengeschichte Mecklenburgs. Parchim, 1840.
Giesebrecht: Wendische Geschichten. Berlin, 1843.
Charlemagne was the first who attempted to introduce Christianity among the Slavic tribes
which, under the collective name of Wends, occupied the Northern part of Germany, along the
coast of the Baltic, from the mouth of the Elbe to the Vistula: Wagrians in Holstein, Obotrites in
Mecklenburg, Sorbians on the Saxon boundary, Wilzians in Brandenburg, etc. But in the hands of
Charlemagne, the Christian mission was a political weapon; and to the Slavs, acceptation of
Christianity became synonymous with political and national subjugation. Hence their fury against
Christianity which, time after time, broke forth, volcano-like, and completely destroyed the work
of the missionaries. The decisive victories which Otto I. gained over the Wends, gave him an
opportunity to attempt, on a large scale, the establishment of the Christian church among them.
Episcopal sees were founded at Havelberg in 946, at Altenburg or Oldenburg in 948, at Meissen,
Merseburg, and Zeitz in 968, and in the last year an archiepiscopal see was founded at Magdeburg.
Boso, a monk from St. Emmeran, at Regensburg, who first had translated the formulas of the liturgy
into the language of the natives, became bishop of Merseburg, and Adalbert, who first had preached
Christianity in the island of Rügen, became archbishop.
But again the Christian church was used as a means for political purposes, and, in the reign
of Otto II., a fearful rising took place among the Wends under the leadership of Prince Mistiwoi.
He had become a Christian himself; but, indignant at the suppression which was practiced in the
name of the Christian religion, he returned to heathenism, assembled the tribes at Rethre, one of
the chief centres of Wendish heathendom, and began, in 983, a war which spread devastation all
over Northern Germany. The churches and monasteries were burnt, and the Christian priests were
expelled. Afterwards Mistiwoi was seized with remorse, and tried to cure the evil he had done in
an outburst of passion. But then his subjects abandoned him; he left the country, and spent the last
days of his life in a Christian monastery at Bardewick. His grandson, Gottschalk, whose Slavic
name is unknown, was educated in the Christian faith in the monastery of St. Michael., near
Lüneburg; but when he heard that his father, Uto, had been murdered, 1032, the old heathen instincts
of revenge at once awakened within him. He left the monastery, abandoned Christianity, and raised