The Lives of the Saints, Volume II (of 16): February. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ she made a farewell visit to all the houses under her care, and exhorted the inmates to prepare for the coming of the heavenly Bridegroom. Then retiring to the convent at Trentham, she quietly waited her departure. The messenger soon came, and found the bride ready, and so with quiet faith and perfect trust she went to the home of her Spouse, on the 3rd of February, 699.

      During the reign of Henry VIII., the shrine was desecrated, and the holy relics of S. Werburga scattered abroad. What remained of the costly shrine was afterwards converted into an episcopal throne, and may still be seen, carved with the curious images of kings of Mercia, ancestors of S. Werburga, who flourished eleven centuries ago. To this day it is used as the throne of the bishops of Chester.

S. NITHARD, P. M(A.D. 840.)

      [From the Life of S. Anskar, c. 6; Adam of Bremen, Hist. Eccl. lib. i.]

      Nithard, nephew of Bishop Gauzbert, accompanied him in his mission to the Swedes; at first he was heard with patience, but the wild pagans, enraged at his denunciation of their worship of Thorr and Odin, burst into the house where he was, and killed him.

S. ANSKAR, B.; AP. OF SWEDEN(A.D. 865.)

      [German, Scandinavian, and Belgian martyrologies. Authorities: – His life by his successor, S. Rembert, who was personally acquainted with him, and had shared in his mission. The following outline of the life of this illustrious saint is from the pen of the Rev. G. F. Maclear, B.D., and is extracted from his "Apostles of Mediæval Europe," somewhat curtailed, and with some modifications.]

      Charlemagne was once, we are told,9 at Narbonne, when, in the midst of the banquet, some swift barks were seen putting into the harbour. The company started up, while some pronounced the crew to be Jewish, others African, others British traders, the keen eye of the great emperor discerned that they were bound on no peaceful errand. "It is not with merchandise," said he, "that yonder barks are laden; they are manned by most terrible enemies." And then he advanced to the window, and stood there a long while in tears. No one dared to ask him the cause of his grief, but at length he explained it himself. "It is not for myself," said he, "that I am weeping, or for any harm that yon barks can do to me. But truly I am pained to think that even while I am yet alive they have dared to approach this shore; and still greater is my grief when I reflect on the evils they will bring on my successors."

      His words were only too truly fulfilled. The sight of those piratical banners told its own tale. The fleets he had built, the strong forts and towns he had erected at the mouths of the various rivers throughout his empire, were neglected by his successors, and what he foresaw came to pass. Year after year, during the ninth century, the children of the North burst forth from their pine forests, their creeks, their fiords, and icebound lakes, and prowled along the defenceless shores of Germany, France, and England. They laughed at the fiercest storms, landed on the most inaccessible coasts, and pushed up the shallowest rivers, while Charlemagne's degenerate successors tamely beheld the fairest towns in their dominions sacked and burnt by the terrible crews of those terrible barks.

      "Take a map," writes Sir Francis Palgrave, "and colour with vermilion the provinces, districts, and shores which the Northmen visited, as the record of each invasion. The colouring will have to be repeated more than ninety times successively before you arrive at the conclusion of the Carlovingian dynasty. Furthermore, mark by the usual symbol of war, two crossed swords, the localities where battles were fought by or against the pirates; where they were defeated or triumphant, or where they pillaged, burned, destroyed; and the valleys and banks of the Elbe, Rhine, and Moselle, Scheldt, Meuse, Somme, and Seine, Loire, Garonne, and Adour, the inland Allier, and all the coasts and coastlands between estuary and estuary, and the countries between the river-streams, will appear bristling as with cheveux-de-frise. The strongly-fenced Roman cities, the venerated abbeys, and their dependent bourgades, often more flourishing and extensive than the ancient seats of government, the opulent sea-ports and trading-towns, were all equally exposed to the Danish attacks, stunned by the Northmen's approach, subjugated by their fury."10

      But while the mind faintly strives to conceive the misery and desolation thus inflicted, on well-nigh every town and village of Germany and France, it finds satisfaction in the thought that even now missionary zeal did not falter; that while every estuary and river darkened under the sails of the Northmen's barks, there were not lacking those who had the Christian bravery to penetrate into the dreary regions whence they issued forth, to seek them out amidst their pine forests and icebound lakes, and to plant amongst them the first germs of Christian civilization.

      The first mission in Denmark was organized in the year a. d. 826, when Harold, king of Jutland, his queen, and a large retinue of Danes, were baptized with great pomp in the vast Dom of Mayence. On this occasion, Harold solemnly did homage to Louis the Pious, and agreed to hold the Danish kingdom as a feudatory of the Carlovingian crown. On this occasion also, Ebbo, the primate of France, determined to seek out a monk who would be willing to accompany the newly-baptized king on his return to Denmark, and remain at his court as a priest and teacher. But the well-known ferocity of the Northmen long deterred any one from offering himself for such a duty. At length the abbot of Corbey, near Amiens, announced that one of his monks was not unwilling to undertake the arduous task.

      The intrepid volunteer was Anskar, a native of a village not far from Corbey. Born in the year a. d. 801, and early devoted by his parents to the monastic life, he had always evinced the deepest religious enthusiasm, and his ardent imagination taught him to believe that he often saw visions and heard voices from another world. When he was only five years of age, he lost his mother: and a dream, in which he saw her surrounded by a majestic choir of virgins, the fairest of whom bade him, if he would join his mother in bliss, flee the pomps and vanities of the world, exerted a profound impression upon him, and induced him to devote himself more than ever to prayer and meditation.

      But when he was thirteen years of age, a. d. 814, an event occurred which exercised a still deeper influence over his susceptible mind. News reached the monastery that Charlemagne was dead. The greatest of great emperors had passed away, and now, in the sepulchre which he had made for himself, "he was sitting on his curule chair, clad in his silken robes, ponderous with broidery, pearls, and orfray, the imperial diadem on his head, his closed eyelids covered, his face swathed in the dead-clothes, girt with his baldric, the ivory horn slung in his scarf, his good sword 'Joyeuse' by his side, the Gospel-book open on his lap, musk and amber and sweet spices poured around."11

      Anskar at this time had relaxed somewhat of his usual austerities, and now the thought that even that mighty prince, whom he himself had seen in all the plenitude of his power could not escape the hand of death, filled him with awe, and he gave himself up more unreservedly than ever to the severest discipline. Meanwhile his talents had brought him into general notice, and when his abbot founded another monastic outpost in Westphalia, in a beautiful valley on the west bank of the Weser, and called it New Corbey, Anskar was removed to the new foundation, and at the age of twenty-five was elected, with the common consent of all, to superintend its conventual school, and to preach to the neighbouring population.

      He was on a visit to Old Corbey, when the news arrived that a monk was much needed to accompany the Danish Harold to his native land, and that the abbot Wala had nominated him to the emperor as a fit person to be entrusted with the arduous mission. Summoned to the court, Anskar calmly but resolutely announced his willingness to go. In dreams and visions, he said, he had heard the voice of Christ himself bidding him preach the word to the heathen tribes: and nothing could induce him to shrink from the plain path of duty. In vain, therefore, on his return to the monastery, the brethren learning that he was about to resign all his hopes and prospects to preach amongst heathens and barbarians, warned, protested, and even mocked at him for his madness. Immoveable in his resolution to brave all risks, he began to prepare himself for his great enterprise by prayer and study of the Scriptures; and so deep was the impression made by his evident sincerity and self-devotion, that Autbert, steward of the monastery, СКАЧАТЬ